Later that morning, Siekmann drove to the northwest suburbs to share what he had learned with a group of law enforcement officials assembled by Fahners team. They would work the case in Chicago and send someone else to Des Plaines to play nice with the others. Still, in his opinion, Fahner was exactly what the task force needed. What happens in most cases, and certainly what happened here beyond any question, was a 100% selfless, unified devotion to a very important mission.. A casket is carried out of St. Hyacinth Roman Catholic Church after the funeral Mass for three members of the Janus family in 1982. All 3 networks lead with the Tylenol story on the first day of the crisis. Im just being honest, Siekmann said. What are the Tylenol murders? The victims had all taken Tylenol-branded acetaminophen capsules that had been laced with potassium cyanide. Members of the Illinois State Police join, as well. He investigated the Tylenol poisonings in the Janus family and later served as police chief in Island Lake. The publication reported this week that it has obtained video and thousands of documents outlining law enforcement's current case and a possible motive for the killings. It was standing room only inside the Arlington Heights Police Department for the first meeting of what would become the Tylenol task force. (Stacey Wescott / Chicago Tribune). Editors note: This report has been updated to remove the reported amount of cyanide used. Thats being made out of whole cloth all these years later. Seven people between 12 and 35 died after ingesting cyanide-laced Tylenol pills in the Chicago area in 1982. Many people who handled the evidence in 1982 told the Tribune they didnt wear gloves because it wasnt part of their agencys protocol at the time. (Chicago Tribune), If you are the Tylenol killer, though, you may be harboring just the vaguest curiosity about the people on the other end of your plan: The people who were unfortunate enough to purchase the bottle you had touched, Greene wrote. What are you giving this story for? So they ran him off the stage and I got up there.. The White House, however, had ordered the FBI to find a way into the case amid growing public panic. The Chicago detectives shared that worry. The Kellerman and Janus bottles contained Tylenol from lot MC2880, manufactured in Pennsylvania on April 26, 1982. They also started grumbling about politics overshadowing their work. Over the next few days, three more strange deaths occurred: 35-year-old Mary McFarland of Elmhurst, Illinois, 35-year-old Paula Prince of Chicago, and 27-year-old Mary Weiner of Winfield, Illinois.. James Thompson, Illinois Secretary of State James Edgar and shook his head. Another theory was that whoever poisoned the medication did it at home or in a car, then placed the bottles back on the shelves. The first few days were spent talking to people closest to Prince and sifting through the many tips they received. Pero quin fue el asesino? (Chicago Tribune), Look, like any other series of government bureaucracies, theres always tension between agencies, he said. IE 11 is not supported. Seven people in the Chicago area were killed that year by Tylenol that had been poisoned with potassium cyanide. They can do it, in part, by revisiting the earliest days of the Tylenol investigation, a time when evidence was not always handled according to todays careful standards. Im not saying that the task force didnt work or thats why the case was never solved, Severns said. He didnt fit that profile, Hogberg said. The Illinois Department of Law Enforcement, now called the Illinois State Police, wanted him to help. Beginning on Sept. 29, 1982, and over the next week, seven people were murdered in the Chicago area after unknowingly taking Tylenol pills that were spiked by a killer. Left: What are the Tylenol murders? Authorities already considered the womens deaths to be cyanide related by the time they contacted Fahner during his campaign event. Former Chicago police Superintendent Richard Brzeczek told the Tribune he believed Fahners selection was purely political, done specifically because of the November election. Among those questioned was a clerical worker who was fired for repeatedly missing work. Joe Murphy told NBC Chicago last year. Lab technicians Nlada Marzette, left, and Lynn Pilaggi inspect the contents of Extra-Strength Tylenol capsules for cyanide contamination at the Illinois Department of Public Health in 1982. Stores were pulling the product off shelves. In 2000, Joy Bergmann revisited the story in "A Bitter Pill" . Written by a high-ranking Illinois state police supervisor in April 1983, the document describes the wide net authorities cast in the hopes of solving the mystery. (Michael Budrys / Chicago Tribune). (Charles Knoblock / AP). In those early days, there were so many agencies involved, so many people desperate to solve the case. Before that she reported for the Daily Herald, the Dayton Daily News and The Topeka Capital-Journal. Product tampering would become a crime in 1983 as a result of these murders, but in 1982 there was no federal law against it. Forty years after that terrifying period in September 1982, investigators say new evidence and a potential motive may be enough to finally solve the case. CBS put a human face on the story which contained the following: "When 12 year-old Mary Kellerman of Elk Grove Village, Ill., awoke at dawn with cold symptoms; her parents gave her one Extra-Strength Tylenol and sent her back to bed. As a result of the crime, makers of Tylenol developed new product protection methods. The Illinois State Police told NBC News the investigation remains ongoing. Former Chicago police Superintendent Richard Brzeczek, shown in September, says he felt Ty Fahner was chosen to head the task force for political reasons. The tainted bottle from the Schaumburg pharmacy contained three partial prints on the capsules, but (they) were not suitable for comparison, the memo states. Thats just human nature. The substance was grainier than the untainted Tylenol on the left. The first tainted Tylenol victim - Mary Kellerman, 12, of Elk Grove Village - collapsed and died on . The lot numbers for the McFarland, Reiner and Prince bottles indicated they were manufactured in Round Rock, Texas, and went to different warehouses in the Chicago area before ending up on store shelves. The decision cost the company more than $100 million, an enormous amount in 1982. This Oct. 18, 1982, column by Tribune columnist Bob Greene included specific details at the request of the FBI, such as the home address of Tylenol victim Mary Kellerman. (Stacey Wescott / Chicago Tribune). When that happened, the suspect would make contact with an investigator and offer to help solve the case. It marked the first mass recall in U.S. history, involving more than 31 million bottles. None matched. The task ahead was difficult. He investigated the Tylenol poisonings in the Janus family and later served as police chief in Island Lake. Extra-Strength Tylenol, shown in a Tribune studio photograph, once was packaged in a paper box with an unglued lid. But thats not a problem, the investigators say. Halfway through the speeches, an aide tapped him on the shoulder and told him he needed to take an important call. (Stacey Wescott / Chicago Tribune). Testing found cyanide in the Extra-Strength Tylenol capsule on the right. So he thought hed maybe get a lifetime supply of ham. Chemists working for the Illinois Public Health Department in Chicago test the contents of Extra-Strength Tylenol capsules. Thompson put him in charge of the investigation to get TV time. NBC News has not reviewed those documents. Thank you. The Chicago Tylenol murders were a series of poisoning deaths resulting from drug tampering in the Chicago metropolitan area in 1982. The Tylenol investigation began as a loose collaboration among detectives in Arlington Heights and Elk Grove Village, the towns where the first three deaths were identified. The panic stemming from the Tylenol murders resulted in a permanent change in the packaging of medicine. Police Officer Michael Miljan leaves an Arlington Heights pharmacy after making sure bottles of Extra-Strength Tylenol were being removed from shelves. Every agency imaginable attended, many of them represented by their top leaders. They told stories of information hoarding, turf wars and glory seeking even when there was none to be had. So as we organized, there were about 10, 15 different avenues of investigations to pursue, like disgruntled employees, former employees, lawsuits, Lane said. Dr. Howard Markel. A casket is carried out of St. Hyacinth Roman Catholic Church after the funeral Mass for three members of the Janus family in 1982. Tylenol capsules laced with cyanide that were sold in the Chicago suburbs were linked to the deaths of seven people, leading to a nationwide panic that had the Food and Drug Administration advising consumers across the country to stop taking Tylenol products. Tainted capsules were discovered in early October in a few other grocery stores and drug stores in the Chicago area, but, fortunately, they had not yet been sold or consumed. Learn more about Friends of the NewsHour. Retired FBI agent Roy Lane Jr., shown in August, is the only member of law enforcement who has been part of the Tylenol investigation in its entirety. When the family returned home, both Adam's brother Stanley and Stanely's wife Theresa took a Tylenol, resulting in both of their deaths. Nearly three weeks after the murders, for example, the FBI asked Chicago Tribune columnist Bob Greene to write a column about Mary Kellerman and include specific details such as the familys home address and the location of the little girls grave, with her parents permission. Pero quin fue el asesino? Some expressed surprise at how casually other people treated the poisoned bottles. Deputy coroner Siekmann recalled going to Winfield to pick up the Tylenol collected from Reiners house a few hours after her death. (Ovie Carter / Chicago Tribune). Whoa, whoa, he recalled. Kouba reviewed each as it came in, deciding which needed a field agents attention and which could be placed in a bin with other ludicrous claims. Extra-Strength Tylenol, shown in a Tribune studio photograph, once was packaged in a paper box with an unglued lid. DNA evidence wasnt part of police work at the time, but it would become a factor in the case a quarter-century later. (Don Casper / Chicago Tribune), Obviously, Johnson & Johnson didnt put cyanide in their own product. Their opinion soured even further at their first meeting, when one of the lead investigators asked for a briefing on the Prince murder. The couple were later pronounced dead, too. And there were a lot of bottles to come out of that lot.. We still receive tips that are being evaluated and investigated. Other copy-cat poisonings, involving Tylenol and other over-the-counter medications, cropped up again in the 1980s and early 1990s but these events were never as dramatic or as deadly as the 1982 Chicago-area deaths. "As you can see, it is easy to place cyanideinto capsules sitting on store shelves," he wrote in the letter. Sadly, the tragedies that resulted from the Tylenol poisonings can never be undone. (Fred Jewell/AP). The bottles traveled to various warehouses, including a final storage stop at a Jewel facility in suburban Franklin Park, before being delivered to different grocery stores on different days before the poisonings. It was so Dick Tracy to me, Steed said. Former Chicago police Detective Jimmy Gildea, shown at his Chicago home in July, investigated the death of Tylenol victim Paula Prince. Former DuPage County Coroner Pete Siekmann, who in 1982 was a deputy coroner, handled the Tylenol bottles from Mary "Lynn" Reiner and Mary McFarland. (James Mayo / Chicago Tribune). Tylenol murders: A nationwide panic, a family tragedy Transformed by tragedy Her dad, aunt and uncle died 40 years ago after taking poisoned Tylenol. Fahner thought state officials needed to be even more aggressive, despite the consequences for the investigation. Perhaps he traded homemade bombs for poisoned pills. In 1983, the U.S. Congress passed what was called the Tylenol bill, making it a federal offense to tamper with consumer products. Former Chicago police Superintendent Richard Brzeczek, shown in September, says he felt Ty Fahner was chosen to head the task force for political reasons. The new timeline suggests Lewis wrote the letter before the public knew the deaths were linked to the tainted Tylenol pills, according to the Chicago Tribune. So, the theory was the tampering took place at the store, said FBI agent Lane. The task force knew the mechanism behind the murders, Fellmann said. Most working detectives really dont trust the FBI, and the FBI doesnt trust us, Ford said. But others, including Lane, found it immensely helpful and from his perspective ultimately accurate. Here, he offers a Spanish-language flyer to Luisa Acevada. Things were chaotic. Severns, who had two young children, heard the undeserved guilt in her voice. Next week: Police investigate a poor mans James Bond, and an eighth person dies. Most came from a banking service that snapped a photograph of anyone writing a check. When Ford and Gildea arrived at the North Side flophouse where the man lived, he was still on the phone with a company operator and was promising to punish Hormel just like he had in the Tylenol case. Extra-Strength Tylenol bottles, for example, came in a paper box with an unglued lid. Severns worked on the case for three days before he realized no one had offered an update to young Mary Kellermans grieving parents. By the time he reached his house in Evanston, he was the de facto leader of what had quickly become the countrys highest-profile murder case. The Tylenol Murders Pt. She also laments that her dad never got to meet her and her husband, her son, her stepson and her step-grandson. I had people dropping dead all over the place.. 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