Tylenol murders suspect gave eerie final interview before death

Fox News

25-05-2025

James Lewis, the suspect in the 1982 Tylenol poisonings, gave a final interview attempting to clear his name. But some still wonder if he was the mastermind behind the murders that triggered a nationwide panic and got away with it.
In a span of three days beginning Sept. 29, 1982, seven people — including a 12-year-old girl — who took cyanide-laced Tylenol in the Chicago area died, sparking a national recall of the product. The poisonings led to the adoption of tamper-proof packaging for over-the-counter medications.
The case, which remains unsolved, is the subject of a new Netflix true crime docuseries, "Cold Case: The Tylenol Murders." It features new interviews with loved ones of the victims, investigators, as well as Lewis, who died in 2023 at 76.
Director Yotam Guendelman told Fox News Digital that during filming, they witnessed a side to Lewis that haunts them.
"For those two days, the vibe in the room was good," Guendelman recalled. "We asked him the hard questions, and we talked about it. But there was a moment when we started asking harder questions, one after the other. We caught him in a few lies, and [he] then snapped for a couple of minutes.
"It became really scary. And for the first time, you can see someone who, even though I do think he tried not to do the worst in his life, when you put him in a corner, when he feels he's up against the wall, he becomes scary for a second. And then he changed back to his sweet, weird self a few minutes later."
"That really stood out," Guendelman reflected. "I think that made us all understand that … he has this part in him that is completely uncontrollable and comes out of nowhere. … You see a person of duality. … But at the same time, we know that even though there are these tender parts of him, he's capable of doing the worst."
Lewis, who had a history of trouble with the law, always denied any role in the Tylenol deaths. In 2010, he gave DNA samples to the FBI and even created a website on which he said he was framed. While he lived in Chicago briefly in the '80s when the murders took place, Lewis said he and his wife were in New York City at the time of the poisonings.
Director Ari Pines told Fox News Digital he was surprised Lewis agreed to give the interview on camera. But after sitting down with him, it was easy to see why.
"First of all, he loved the attention," Pines claimed. "He was cautious, but our producer, Molly Forster, built this relationship with him for almost a year. She gained his trust bit by bit. And it worked. I think he also enjoyed the fact that we didn't just look at him as this sensational character, which he is, but also as a human being."
Guendelman said it took several months to convince Lewis to speak out for what turned out to be the last time.
"Molly took another approach; she was much more gentle," he explained. "He built this trust with him. Even though he knew we were going to ask him the hard questions, we were also going to give him a chance to tell his story for the first time, from start to finish."
In 1974, Lewis suffered a personal tragedy when his only daughter, 5-year-old Toni Ann Lewis, died from heart issues. One theory the documentary presented was that Lewis acted out in revenge against Johnson & Johnson, Tylenol's parent company.
According to the Chicago Tribune, the sutures used to fix Toni's congenital heart defect tore. They were made by Ethicon, a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson.
According to reports, the unknown killer bought Extra-Strength Tylenol from six different stores in the Chicago area and packed the capsules with large doses of deadly potassium cyanide. The individual then placed the bottles back on the shelves.
Lewis was in New York City when he was arrested in 1982 after a nationwide manhunt. He gave investigators a detailed account of how the killer behind the Tylenol murders might have operated. Lewis served more than 12 years in prison for sending an extortion note to manufacturer Johnson & Johnson demanding $1 million to "stop the killing."
He admitted to sending the letter and demanding the money but said he never intended to collect it. Instead, he said he wanted to embarrass his wife's former employer and had the money sent to the employer's bank account.
During the investigation, the police discovered Lewis's dark past. In 1978, he was charged in Kansas City, Missouri, with the dismemberment murder of Raymond West, 72, who had hired Lewis as an accountant. The charges were dismissed because West's cause of death was not determined, and some evidence had been illegally obtained.
Lewis was convicted of six counts of mail fraud in a 1981 credit card scheme in Kansas City. He was accused of using the name and background of a former tax client to obtain 13 credit cards.
Police described Lewis as a "chameleon" who lived in several states, used at least 20 aliases and held many jobs, including computer specialist, tax accountant, importer of Indian tapestries and seller of jewelry, pharmaceutical machinery and real estate.
In 1983, Lewis was convicted of extortion and spent 12 years in federal prison, the New York Times reported. After Lewis was convicted, he offered to help prosecutors solve the Tylenol murders, the outlet reported. It noted that when he was a fugitive, he wrote several rambling letters to the Chicago Tribune disclaiming any connection and demanding capital punishment for "whoever poisoned those capsules."
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Following his release, he and his wife moved to Massachusetts in 1995. But his run-ins with the law didn't end there.
Lewis was charged in 2004 with rape, kidnapping and other offenses for an alleged attack on a woman in Cambridge. He was jailed for three years while awaiting trial, but prosecutors dismissed the charges on the day his trial was scheduled to begin after the victim refused to testify, the Middlesex County District Attorney's Office said at the time.
"I think for the FBI, James Lewis is always the main suspect, and I can understand why," said Pines. "… We've also managed to uncover a lot of evidence and documents, which were sealed from the original investigation, and we're showing a lot of that in the series.
WATCH: TYLENOL MURDERS SUSPECT TELLS FBI THEY MISSED THE KILLER'S BIG BLUNDER
"But I will say there are also a lot of other documents that are still sealed, and the public is still not aware of. And we firmly believe that now is a good time… to unseal all the documents, and to show the public everything that this investigation found. Maybe that will bring us closer to finding out the truth."
According to the docuseries, some investigators are adamant that Lewis will always remain a person of interest. Others aren't convinced. The docuseries presents several other theories, including those supported by some of the loved ones.
Lewis previously told the Associated Press in 1992 that the account he gave the authorities was simply his way of explaining the killer's actions. He called the murderer "a heinous, cold-blooded killer, a cruel monster."
Guendelman believes there may have been more victims unaccounted for.
"After we talked with the coroner, the FBI agents, the prosecutors … that's the theory," he explained. "Cyanide, as we show in the series, served as a perfect crime because it dissolves so quickly. And if it wasn't for one specific doctor who [realized] that these people were poisoned, and it was not a natural death, nobody would've known about it. … I do believe in this theory.
"That's why we made this film. We're not only doing this for the victims that we know about but also for the possible unnamed victims as well."
Pines is hopeful that in his lifetime, especially with renewed interest in the case, we'll find out who was definitively responsible for the mass murders.
"There are so many families here who never got the answer they wanted," said Pines. "The truth is out there, and there's someone out there who knows more. I hope that person will see this film, see the families and come forward. … I think every cold case needs closure."