CODE NAME TYMURS: THE TYLENOL KILLER

Article BY Chris Bartholomew

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Tymurs was/is the FBI code name for the 1982 Tylenol tampering case, referred to as the Tylenol Murders. After 100 investigators, more than 6,500 leads, 400 possible suspects, some 20,000 pages of reports, no crime scene and no motive, it looked as if these senseless killings would never be solved. Now the FBI has reopened the case as of February of this year, and they are looking at a suspect that they looked at all along but never actually 'caught'.

The FBI says, about reopening the case: This review was prompted, in part, by the recent 25th anniversary of this crime and the resulting publicity. Further, given the many recent advances in forensic technology, it was only natural that a second look be taken at the case and recovered evidence.

The Case:

September 29, 1982, 12-year-old Mary Kellerman of Elk Grove Village, Illinois died after taking a capsule of Extra Strength Tylenol. Adam Janus of Arlington Heights, Illinois died in the hospital shortly thereafter. Adam Janus brother, Stanley of Lisle, Illinois and his wife Theresa died after gathering to mourn, having taken pills from the same bottle. Soon afterward, Mary McFarland of Elmhurst, Paula Prince of Chicago and Mary Reiner of Winfield, Illinois also died in similar incidents. In addition to the five bottles which led to the victims' deaths, three other tampered bottles were discovered.

The theory remains that the killer visited each store and paid for the Tylenol, not wanting to risk a shoplifting arrest. He or she then emptied a handful of capsules, replaced the acetaminophen with potassium cyanide, recapped the capsules, sprinkled a few on top of each bottle to insure quick ingestion, and returned the box to its shelf sometime around September 28, the day before the first death. In 1982 store surveillance cameras and scanner databases weren't as prevalent as today. There were no pictures, no debit card records, no witnesses, and no evidence.

On the morning of October 6, 1982, photocopies of an unsigned letter got passed around an internal Johnson & Johnson strategy meeting. Handwritten in block printing it read:

JOHNSON & JOHNSON
PARENT OF
McNEIL LABORATORIES
GENTLEMEN:
AS YOU CAN SEE, IT IS EASY TO PLACE CYANIDE (BOTH POTASSIUM & SODIUM) INTO CAPSULES SITTING ON STORE SHELVES. AND SINCE THE CYANIDE IS INSIDE THE GELATIN, IT IS EASY TO GET BUYERS TO SWALLOW THE BITTER PILL. ANOTHER BEAUTY IS THAT CYANIDE OPERATES QUICKLY. IT TAKES SO VERY LITTLE. AND THERE WILL BE NO TIME TO TAKE COUNTER MEASURES.
IF YOU DON'T MIND THE PUBLICITY OF THESE LITTLE CAPSULES, THEN DO NOTHING. SO FAR, I HAVE SPENT LESS THAN FIFTY DOLLARS AND IT TAKES ME LESS THAN 10-MINUTES PER BOTTLE.
IF YOU WANT TO STOP THE KILLING THEN WIRE $1,000,000.00 TO BANK ACCOUNT # 84-49-597 AT CONTINENTAL ILLINOIS BANK CHICAGO, ILL.
DON'T ATTEMPT TO INVOLVE THE FBI OR LOCAL CHICAGO AUTHORITIES WITH THIS LETTER. A COUPLE OF PHONE CALLS BY ME WILL UNDO ANYTHING YOU CAN POSSIBLY DO.

The FBI found fingerprints on the letter, and were able to trace the stationary and stamped envelope to the person they have always looked at and are looking at again now, James Lewis. His home was searched in February of this year, and although there haven't been any leaks as to what they found, if anything, it's suggested that forensic experts are saying the answer may be either new evidence or new technology. There is old evidence, with new ways to test old evidence and potential evidence they gathered Wednesday at the Massachusetts home of James Lewis.

Lewis was never charged in the deaths, but he did go to prison for writing the extortion letter. He served thirteen years of a 20-year sentence for extortion.

Lewis, now living in Boston, runs a web design and programming company called Cyberlewis. The company’s site (currently offline) included a tab called “Tylenol” with a written message and audio link in which Lewis claimed he was innocent of the killings. That page said: (Mistakes are his)

So you want to hear me yammer, You have come to the right page..

Somehow, after a quarter of a century, I surmise only a select few with critical minds will believe anything I have to say. Many people look for hidden agendas, for secret double entendre, and ignore the literal meanings I convey. Many enjoy twisting and contorting what I say into something ominous and dreadful which I do not intend.

That my friends is the curse of being labelled the Tylenol Man.

Be that as it may, I can NOT change human proclivities. I shant try. Listen as you like.

So, who is this James Lewis that was always suspected and being looked at again as a suspect?

He was born in Memphis in 1946, to migrant workers Theodore and Opal Wilson. In 1948, his father left the family, and a few months later, Opal left him and two daughters, fend for themselves in a transient motel in Joplin, Missouri.

They were found by a social worker and split up. Joplin's Big Brothers agency took him in and granted custody of him to Floyd and Charlotte Lewis, who renamed him James William Lewis.

Jim grew up near a chemical plant that manufactured explosives. While Charlotte worked in a shirt factory, Floyd sharecropped 20 acres and served as primary caregiver. It was a rough existence made more difficult by the child's emotional problems.

It is said that he was in a lot of trouble in his young years, a very mixed up boy, always doing things that ordinary people wouldn't do. Charlotte Lewis tried to give the boy back to the Big Brothers because she couldn't handle him, but they wouldn't take him back.
Floyd Lewis died of a stroke when Jim was 12. For the next five years, Charlotte and her son lived alone in the home without plumbing or electricity. In 1964 she married Glenn Nelson, a groundskeeper at the local golf course. But problems with the teenage Jim so frightened Charlotte she slept with a gun under her pillow.

A double life was emerging. At school Lewis made good grades, played trombone in the marching band, and worked on the yearbook. At home he raged. When he was 19, Lewis reportedly chased his mother with an ax and was charged with assaulting his stepfather, breaking several ribs in a beating. Lewis overdosed on 36 Anacin tablets and was committed to a Missouri state mental hospital in 1966 with a diagnosis of catatonic schizophrenia. He later tried to explain the apparent suicide attempt and his brutality against his parents as an elaborate plan the family had hatched so he could avoid the Vietnam draft.

Lewis liked school. He attended the University of Missouri at Kansas City, where he met LeAnn Miller. The couple married on Thanksgiving Day 1968.

[In 1978, Lewis was charged with the murder and dismemberment of an elderly man, Raymond West, 72 of Kansas City. Charges were dropped in this case. In 2004, Lewis was charged with kidnapping and raping a woman in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The case was dropped by the District Attorney when the victim refused to testify.]

In June 1969, LeAnn gave birth to a daughter, Toni Ann. Their joy was unaffected by the baby's Down's syndrome and health problems.

Jim and LeAnn started working together as bookkeepers for Haley's Instant Tax Service. They moved into its basement and managed the operation for a couple of years. Then one day Lewis exploded at its owner, Bob Haley. Haley told the Kansas City Star he wanted to take a desk calculator home and Lewis "just blew his stack." Jim and LeAnn left to open their own business, Lewis & Lewis Business Tax Service, in a run-down part of Kansas City. They served their clientele from a storefront office with Toni Ann playing happily alongside them. The toddler would often sit in the window and wave at passersby on Troost Avenue.

One day an elderly man named Raymond West waved back. Enchanted by the little girl, West introduced himself to the Lewis's and became their client as well as their friend. He tried to comfort them when Toni Ann had to have corrective heart surgery and when she succumbed to complications on December 10, 1974.

Grief stricken, the parents continued to talk about their daughter and show off her drawings to clients. But they carried on and in 1975 moved to a bungalow farther up Troost, not far from West's home on Campbell.

West, a lifelong bachelor and former truck driver, had lived in the neighborhood with his mother since 1946. By 1977 his mother had died and West retired to a simple life of daily walks, reading the evening paper on his porch swing, and tending his flower garden. That September a freak flood swept away three area houses and West's car, nearly killing the robust 72-year-old. Neighbors threw him a rope while he struggled against the raging waters. He survived and went right to work repairing his property.

Folks were used to seeing West. He liked to be helpful. He saved his newspapers and took them to a local florist every Sunday.

On Sunday, July 23, 1978, West went to the florist's as usual. A neighbor said he called her later that evening. He reported feeling a little sick but talked mostly about getting his refrigerator fixed. That was the last anyone heard from him.

After a friend made attempts to find West, with the police being called to the residence numerous times, the friend changing locks on the house, and notes left on the door that the friend swore were not in West's handwriting, the police finally entered the house. By the smell, they knew what they'd find, a partially decomposed body was lying facedown, and both legs had been severed at the hip joint. The right leg lay near the head on the right side; the other rested farther down on the left. Both feet wore black socks; both legs had been wrapped in sheets. The head was also wrapped with sheets and a cord, and the torso was partially covered with a garbage bag tied on with cotton rope. All the wrappings were saturated with blood and other bodily fluids, which had soaked through the insulation below.

In the attic's corner, police found pruning shears, a baseball bat, and a pulley like device along with more rope. They theorized the body had been hoisted to the rafters.

The corpse was so highly decomposed medical examiners were unable to determine the victim's identity, age, or race. Taking fingerprints was out of the question. Hair samples would be tough to come by, dental records, worse. West was bald and had dentures from a defunct dentist's office.

Eventually examiners were able to match the body with a stray hair found in a cap downstairs. They didn't have a cause of death. There were no bullet wounds or signs of trauma. What authorities did have was a check for $5,000 drawn on West's account. It was dated July 23, 1978. The payee: James Lewis.
Within hours of discovering the body, police went to Lewis's home, handcuffed him, and took him downtown. They relieved him of his property and put him in a holding cell for an hour. He was then taken to an office and questioned for several hours.

Lewis explained that the check was a loan West had given him during a morning visit on Sunday, July 23. He also said he put the note on West's front door so folks wouldn't worry. He told police he didn't know anyone who would want to hurt Ray. He submitted fingerprints and a handwriting sample and was released.

According to the police report, detectives asked Lewis if he had West's checkbook and a key to his home. "I do not," Lewis told them. He then agreed to sign a consent-to-search form allowing police to survey his home and office as well as his vehicles, saying, "I'll sign it, but I don't have the key and checkbook and I think you guys are fishing."

In Lewis's car detectives discovered-among other items-20 feet of knotted white rope, a black attaché case with papers bearing West's name, a trash bag, and a bundle of Raymond West's checks.

The police again took Lewis into custody. Officers asked if he had killed Raymond West. Lewis said no.

In late August the Jackson County grand jury charged Lewis with capital murder. But days before the October 1979 trial date, prosecutor James Bell asked for dismissal of the case.

In pretrial motions, Riederer successfully argued police had no probable cause to arrest Lewis the first time. They also neglected to read him his Miranda warning. Every scrap of evidence collected thereafter fell away as inadmissible. Even the original indictment was ruled defective--it omitted the term "felonious."

His lawyer said its one thing to kill someone; it's another thing to dismember them after they're dead. Dismembering someone after they are dead is not homicide. His lawyer also said that there really was no evidence of foul play prior to his death... ah; the fact that he was dismembered at all seems to cry foul play.

As Lewis left the courtroom a free man.

James and his wife LeAnn moved often, living in transient hotels, getting into trouble and starting many failed businesses. Before she quit her job in the spring of 1982, LeAnn stamped a stack of blank envelopes with postage from a Pitney Bowes meter. The postmark said April 15, 1982. (This helped the FBI locate the writer of the letter trying to extort a million dollars after the Tylenol murders.)

A number of copycat attacks involving Tylenol and other products ensued during the following years. One of these incidents occurred in the Chicago area; unlike Tylenol, it actually forced the end of the product affected by the hoax, Encaprin, from Procter & Gamble. However, the incident did inspire the pharmaceutical, food, and consumer product industries to develop tamper-resistant packaging, such as induction seals, and improved quality control methods. Moreover, product tampering was made a federal crime.