On September 29th, 1982, in Chicago, Illinois, Mary Kellerman, Mark Reiner, Mary McFarland, Paula Prince, Adam Janus, Stanley Janus, and Theresa Janus ingested Tylenol pills and died within the following days. Of these 7 victims, the oldest was 35 and the youngest was 12. Adam Janus had taken extra strength Tylenol and died the same day. His siblings Stanely and Theresa took Tylenol and died the same day their brother did. This led police to close in on the Tylenol they took as being the killer. Tylenol from the Janus’s home and from Mary Kellerman had the same control number. The bottles reportedly smelled like almonds, a trait of cyanide. By October 1st, it was concluded the Tylenol was poisoned with cyanide. Something that confused the police was that all of the victims bought the tylenol from different stores and different production plants. As a result, Tylenol was pulled from shelves and over 30 million bottles were recalled. Mass hysteria ensued. Hospitals and poison control centers were swarmed with people who were afraid they had been poisoned and there were over 250 cases of product poisoning incidents that were trying to copy the Tylenol murders in the following month. When bottles were tested, an additional poisoned bottle was found on shelves
Roger Arnold was investigated after saying things about the murders at a bar that many thought were suspicious. When his home was searched, manuals on how to commit crimes were found. Beakers and other chemistry equipment were found as well. He also had connections to some of the victims. Roger Arnold refused to take a polygraph. In the end, the police never had enough evidence to arrest him. A week after the deaths, a letter was sent to Johnson & Johnson stating that A) the writer of the letter is the perpetrator of the killings and B) $1,000,000 must be sent to their bank account to stop the killings. The fingerprints of a man named James Lewis were found on the letter. James Lewis was found on December 13th and arrested. However, the bank account number did not belong to James Lewis. Rather, the number belonged to Frederick McCahey. Lewis believed that McCahey had scammed his (Lewis's) wife out of $511. This implies that the letter wasn’t actually written by the perpetrator, and instead a revenge plot. In addition to these two suspects, The Unabomber, or Theodore Kaczynski, was asked to provide DNA evidence in 2009 towards solving the case.
As a result of the murders, seals are required on medicine and pills. I believe that we have not yet found the Tylenol Murderer. Of the three suspects described, Roger Arnold is the most plausible. He, however, doesn’t even have much evidence. All evidence that makes him suspicious is circumstantial and weak. I believe James Lewis wasn’t very bright and would be convicted for being petty before he was convicted for being the Tylenol Murderer. The Unabomber, although he has an infamous criminal past, doesn’t really have any connections to this crime. A crime like this is very hard to solve and I don’t know if this case will ever be solved. I’m very glad that we have seals to prevent this.
Do you think any of these three suspects were the murderer?
Do you think this case will ever be solved?
Replies
I think they all have something to do with it. It would be hard to figure out though with the little evidence that had. I don't think the crime will be solved.
i think that roger was definetly the most suspicious and had the most signs poingting to him. This case seems like it would be hard to find who actually did this especially with that little of evidence. It could have been just someone trying to get revenge so they poisened the victims.
I think the all three commited the crimes together but they seperated from each other/distributed the evidence so that it couldn't be pinned on any of them. I really don't believe that the crime will be solved beacuse it was commited back in the mid 80s
I'm not sure whether any of them are the perpetrators, but there is probably some evidence somewhere that points towards one of them or somebody completely different. This case could go unsolved forever, but I'm not sure whether or not it will be solved.
I don't think that any of the suspects above is the true perpetrator of the crime. this case will most than likely stay unsolved until the true perpetrator turns him or her self in. this has happened many times right before he or she is about to die so they just help solve the case. it might also be solved by an amateur that is trying to make a name from him or her self.
I don't know if any of these three people did in fact commit the murders, however there is a good chance one of them could have. I would hope that with technology advancing more and more that the case could eventally be solved however the case could also be closed and forgotten about for all we know.
I believe that any of them could have been the murders. I don't believe this case is ever going to be solved. Considering that its a very old case I don't think it is ever going to be solved because they probably already lost a lot of evidence and witnesses.
The way it sounds is that they all three could have been murderers but there is no way of proving it. the case is too old and definetly will not get solved because there is no new information or anything else to really prove it.
To be honest I think it all depends but I personally think that they were the murders because they did die around the same week or the same day. I personally don't think that case would ever be solved because they don't know for sure whether it was a murder or not.
I do not think that any of the three suspects were in fact the murderer. I do not think that the case will ever be solved. Cases this old are harder to solve since DNA testing was not something that was used in investigations. In the 80's they also wouldn't have had many or any security cameras to see who was in and out of the stores that the bottles came from.
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