The only suspect investigators believed was responsible for the 1982 Tylenol murders in Chicago is dead, police said Monday.
James Lewis, 76, was never charged in the seven murders, but he was the only person targeted by law enforcement as a suspect for more than 40 years in the case.
Police in Cambridge, Massachusetts, confirmed that the department and EMS workers responded to Lewis’ suburban Boston home for an unresponsive call Sunday afternoon. He later he was declared deceased.
“After an investigation, it was determined that Lewis’s death was not suspicious,” the department said.
Seven people in the Chicago area died, ranging in age from 12 to 35, after ingesting extra-strength Tylenol capsules laced with cyanide. Lewis, who was in his 30s at the time, denied any involvement in the deaths.
But Lewis was convicted of attempted extortion after writing a ransom note to Johnson & Johnson, the parent company that makes Tylenol. Lewis demanded $1 million from the company “if he wants to stop the killing,” according to The Chicago Tribune.
The Chicago Tribune reviewed the case last year in an eight-episode podcast series, which included a review of documents and video evidence obtained by law enforcement. NBC News has not reviewed that evidence.
The letter’s postmark appeared to show that Lewis wrote the letter before the public knew the deaths were linked to the contaminated Tylenol pills, the Tribune reported.
Former Assistant US Attorney Jeremy Margolis, who successfully prosecuted the extortion case, told the Chicago Tribune that he regrets that Lewis was never brought to justice for the Tylenol deaths.
“I was saddened to learn of the death of James Lewis,” Morgolis said in a statement to the Tribune. “Not because he is dead, but because he did not die in prison.”
Even 40 years later, the impact of the Tylenol murders is still evident in homes and on drugstore shelves across the country. The Food and Drug Administration passed tamper-evident packaging regulations in direct response to the 1982 deaths. according to the agency’s website.
And in 1983 Congress passed the Federal Law against Manipulation, which made tampering with consumer products punishable by up to 20 years in prison. The sentence increases to a maximum of life if someone dies as a result.
