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Who Was the Tylenol Serial Killer? Revisiting the Terrifying True Story of Netflix's' Cold Case: The Tylenol Murders'
In 1982, seven people died in Chicago after ingesting cyanide-laced Tylenol
James Lewis, who died in 2023, was considered a primary suspect for decades, though he was never charged in connection with the crime
In May 2025, Netflix released a docuseries titled Cold Case: The Tylenol Murders, featuring LewisIt's been over 40 years since the Tylenol serial killer triggered a nationwide panic after seven people in the Chicago area ingested poisoned pain medication and were left dead.
Over the course of just over 48 hours, victims between the ages of 12 and 35 suffered cardiac arrest immediately after taking Tylenol capsules that had unknowingly been laced with lethal doses of cyanide. As each victim was hospitalized, medical professionals worked around the clock to uncover what had caused their sudden deaths.
It was the joint effort of a fire lieutenant, a public health official and an ICU doctor who connected that all the patients had taken the pain killer just before their death. Given their symptoms, the doctor concluded that the victims had exhibited signs of cyanide poisoning, and lab tests quickly proved his theory correct, per the Chicago Tribune.
The swift thinking of emergency personnel helped expedite the process to inform the public and save the lives of many other potential victims. But just who was behind the murders was a mystery — and the case remains unsolved to this day.
While James Lewis, a man who sent a ransom letter to Tylenol manufacturer Johnson & Johnson shortly after the murders, has been a primary suspect for the past 40 years, he was never charged with the crime. Although he did spend time behind bars for extortion, he maintained his innocence until the day he died in 2023.
Now, the Tylenol murders are being revisited in the Netflix documentary Cold Case: The Tylenol Murders, which is currently streaming and features interviews with Lewis.
So what happened during the Tylenol murders? Here's everything to know about the crimes and decades-long investigation.
In September 1982, numerous people in the Chicago area died under mysterious circumstances over the span of just a few days — and their deaths were eventually linked to Tylenol capsules that had been contaminated with cyanide. The incident led to mass panic from the public surrounding over-the-counter medication.
Within hours of contaminated medication being discovered, news spread around the Chicago area. News publications and radio stations extensively covered the poisonings to spread the word before more people could be impacted. Police officers drove through neighborhoods and used bullhorns to tell the public to throw out their Tylenol. Public health officials went door-to-door with flyers.
Tylenol was quickly pulled from shelves around Chicago, per the Chicago Tribune, eventually leading to a nationwide recall of Tylenol products.
In total, seven people were killed by ingesting contaminated Tylenol, although there may have been other unknown victims. The casualties included a child as well as three members of the same family: Mary Kellerman, 12, Adam Janus, 27, Stanley Janus, 25, Theresa 'Terri' Janus, 20, Mary McFarland, 31, Paula Prince, 35, and Mary Reiner, 27.
The first death linked to the Tylenol poisonings was 12-year-old Mary Kellerman, who collapsed at home and was pronounced dead just hours after ingesting a laced capsule, per the Chicago Tribune. Later that day, Adam Janus, a 27-year-old mailman, also died shortly after being hospitalized. His death was initially ruled a heart attack, according to CBS News, but what happened in the days that followed alerted medical professionals that foul play may have been involved.
Just hours after Adam was pronounced dead, his brother Stanley and his wife Terri visited his home to begin making funeral plans. Not feeling well, they each took Tylenol capsules from the bottle that had unknowingly caused Adam's death. They both immediately began experiencing chest pains and collapsed.
It was Fire Lt. Chuck Kramer who recognized that just that morning, authorities had responded to a similar emergency at the same address. Believing the incidents were linked and could have affected other members of the family, he ordered everyone else in the house to be quarantined at the hospital. He then contacted Arlington Heights' only public health official, Helen Jensen, to begin an investigation into the deaths, per the Chicago Tribune.
After interviewing family members, Jensen concluded that all three people had taken Tylenol shortly before their deaths. She later went to the Janus family home and picked up the bottle of Tylenol, realizing that it was a new bottle that had only been used by the three family members. She brought it back to the Cook County medical examiner's office and declared that there must be something wrong with the pills. She was initially ignored.
Meanwhile, others were coming to the same conclusion. Dr. Thomas Kim, who was treating the Janus family, told Lt. Kramer that he believed the deaths were caused by something they had all ingested. Later that night, when Lt. Kramer spoke to a firefighter on the scene of Kellerman's death, he learned that the little girl had also taken Tylenol — and they began putting things together.
When Dr. Kim learned of the connection, he began brainstorming what could have caused such a sudden onset of symptoms. After consulting with poison experts, he concluded that the effects of cyanide matched up with the victims' sudden cardiac arrest. Unable to run tests at his hospital, he sent two vials of blood from Stanley and Terri to a 24-hour lab via a taxi cab.
With the information from Dr. Kim, the medical examiner's office began to look into the Tylenol bottles from the Janus and Kellerman households. With just a smell test, an investigator could tell there was cyanide inside. The county's chief toxicologist began to run tests on the Tylenol capsules and quickly realized that some of the pills contained nearly three times the amount needed to kill someone.
Shortly after, lab results confirmed that Stanley and Terri — as well as several other victims — had died from acute cyanide poisoning.
No one has ever been charged for the deaths resulting from the tainted medication, and the identity of the Tylenol serial killer remains unknown. However, Lewis has long been considered the primary suspect.
In the midst of the investigation surrounding the contaminated Tylenol bottles, authorities uncovered that Lewis had sent a ransom letter to Tylenol's parent company, Johnson & Johnson, demanding $1 million in order to 'stop the killing,' according to the Associated Press. He immediately became a suspect in the case.
At the time, Lewis was described by police as a 'chameleon,' living across several states and using at least 20 aliases. He worked numerous different jobs, including computer specialist, tax accountant, importer of Indian tapestries and salesman of jewelry, pharmaceutical machinery and real estate, per AP.
He also had a history of trouble with the law. Several years prior to the poisonings, he had been accused of murdering and dismembering Raymond West, who had been one of his accounting clients. The charges were ultimately dropped because West's cause of death was not determined and some evidence had been illegally obtained.
Then, in 1981, Lewis was convicted of mail fraud as part of a credit card scheme, using the name of a former tax client to illegally obtain 13 credit cards. Around that time, he also sent a letter to then-President Ronald Reagan, threatening to kill him with a remote-controlled plane, per UPI.
Given his troubled past and his letter to Johnson & Johnson, authorities began an intensive investigation into Lewis's involvement in the crime.
Lewis was never convicted of murdering the seven people who died after ingesting the contaminated medication, but remained a primary suspect for the majority of his life.
During early interviews with Lewis, he denied involvement in the poisonings but confessed to writing the extortion letter to Johnson & Johnson. The letter referenced how 'easy' it could be to contaminate medication and said it could take him 'less than 10 minutes per bottle.'
While he did not admit to contaminating the Tylenol, he did offer an explanation as to how he believed the crime took place. He told authorities that the culprit was likely to have bought the Tylenol and then later added the cyanide and returned the bottles to store shelves. In the years that followed, he said he offered the explanation because he was treating the investigation as he would a business situation.
'I was doing like I would have done for a corporate client, making a list of possible scenarios,' he told AP in 1992. He called the killer 'a heinous, cold-blooded killer, a cruel monster.'
Lewis was not able to be linked to the tainted bottles through forensic testing, and he could not be placed in Chicago at the time of the crime. Despite the suspicion surrounding him, there was not enough evidence to convict Lewis. He was never charged with murder but did go to trial on charges of extortion stemming from the ransom letter he wrote to Johnson & Johnson.
In June 1984, he was convicted of extortion and sentenced to 10 years in prison, per The New York Times.
Over the past four decades, authorities have continued to investigate the Tylenol serial killer case. On several occasions, they have come up with leads, with many seemingly pointing back to Lewis.
Around 2007, further investigation was prompted by authorities who wanted a 'complete review of all evidence developed in connection' with the poisonings with the benefit of advances in forensic technology.
During an undercover sting operation, Lewis confessed that it had taken him three days to write the extortion letter, per the Chicago Tribune. Using advanced technology, investigators were able to uncover that the letter had an Oct. 1, 1982, postmark — meaning that Lewis began writing the letter before news of the poisoned Tylenol was made public. When Lewis was presented with the information, he recanted his statement, claiming to have a 'faulty memory.'
In the years that followed, the FBI met with or had phone conversations with Lewis at least 34 times, according to CBS News. The FBI also obtained fresh samples of his DNA and fingerprints, but they did not match any of the DNA recovered on the contaminated bottles.
Authorities also raided Lewis' suburban Boston condo and storage locker, seizing a laptop among other items. They also collected a poison handbook that Lewis had in his home prior to moving to Chicago in 1981, per the Chicago Tribune. Investigators even found Lewis' fingerprints on pages that discussed how much cyanide would be needed to kill someone.
Lewis continued to deny his involvement in the crime, and authorities were unable to charge Lewis with murder.
In July 2023, Lewis died at the age of 76. Police in Cambridge, Mass., told PEOPLE that Lewis was found unresponsive in his home and was pronounced dead shortly after.
'Following an investigation, Lewis' death was determined to be not suspicious,' police added.
After the news was made public, former Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeremy Margolis, who had prosecuted Lewis for extortion, told the Chicago Tribune and CBS News Chicago that he 'was saddened to learn of James Lewis' death' — not because of the death itself but because Lewis 'didn't die in prison.'
However, before his death, Lewis was interviewed for the 2025 Netflix docuseries about the case. He continued to deny his involvement in the poisonings, saying, "They make it look like I'm the world's most horrible, dangerous person ever ... and I wouldn't hurt anybody."
Read the original article on People
