James Lewis, prime suspect in the 1982 Tylenol murders, located useless

CHICAGO (CBS)– The key suspect in the1982 Tylenol murders has been discovered dead.

In accordance to Cambridge police, James Lewis was observed unresponsive on Sunday just after 4 p.m. 

He was pronounced dead shortly soon after. Law enforcement claimed his loss of life was “determined to be not suspicious.”

In 1982, 7 people in the bigger Chicago location died following getting Tylenol laced with cyanide. 

Quickly following, a man wrote an extortion letter to Johnson & Johnson and its subsidiary, the maker of Tylenol — demanding $1 million to end the killings. The person who wrote that letter was James Lewis. He would later on invest a dozen several years in jail for attempted extortion.

Resources explain to CBS 2 Chicago, this is a discouraging day for regulation enforcement who’ve been investigating the situation for many years. CBS 2’s reporting uncovered Lewis was a prime suspect given that working day one particular, and officials felt they had enough circumstantial evidence for Lewis to be charged. 

 CBS 2 Investigators started re-examining the circumstance back again in April reporter Brad Edwards traveled to Massachusetts in 2022 to test to monitor down Lewis. Edwards interviewed him. 

“I was hoping to see justice,” one resource explained to CBS 2. 

Lewis was in no way billed with the murders, but he was convicted of seeking to extort $1 million from Johnson & Johnson in the days right after the cyanide-laced drugs showed up on store cabinets.  

He was residing at the pretty identical Cambridge apartment he moved into following getting unveiled from jail.

He was genuinely the only dwelling acknowledged human being of fascination and had not been observed or heard from in far more than a ten years.

CBS Chicago interviewed family members, attorneys, and regulation enforcement officers whose lives were being eternally impacted by the murders. The victims’ previous moments to stories from inside the inner investigation are documented during the interviews.