The Chicago Tylenol murders were a series of poisoning deaths resulting from drug tampering in the Chicago metropolitan area in 1982. The victims had all taken Tylenol-branded acetaminophen capsules that had been laced with potassium cyanide. Seven people died in the original poisonings, and there were several more deaths in subsequent copycat crimes. No suspect has been charged or convicted of the poisonings. New York City resident James William Lewis was convicted of extortion for sending a letter to Tylenol's manufacturer, Johnson & Johnson, that took responsibility for the deaths and demanded $1 million to stop them, but evidence tying Lewis to the actual poisonings never emerged. The incidents led to reforms in the packaging of over-the-counter drugs and to federal anti-tampering laws. Deaths and early public-safety efforts On September 28, 1982, 12-year-old Mary Kellerman was hospitalized after consuming a capsule of Extra-Strength Tylenol; she died the next day. On September 29th, six other individuals consumed contaminated Tylenol, including Adam Janus (27), Stanley Janus (25), and Theresa Janus (20), who each took Tylenol from a single bottle. All six—the Januses, Mary McFarland (31), Paula Prince (35), and Mary Reiner (27)—would ultimately die from the consumption. Asked to investigate the Janus deaths, Nurse Helen Jensen, Arlington Height's only public health official, visited the Janus household and discovered a Tylenol bottle with an accompanying receipt indicating it had been purchased the same day; noticing that there were six pills missing, she turned the bottle over to investigator Nick Pishos and reported her suspicion that it was related to the Janus' deaths. Pishos called Dr. Edmund Donoghue, deputy chief medical examiner for Cook County, who, suspecting that cyanide may be the culprit, asked Pishos to smell the bottle. When Pishos smelled an almond-like scent, Donoghue asked the county’s chief toxicologist, Michael Schaffer, to test the capsules, and Schaffer's team determined that each of the remaining 44 capsules from the Janus's bottle contained nearly three times the fatal amount of cyanide. Investigators noticed that the Janus bottle and the Kellerman bottle—which, by chance, had been inventoried by paramedics—had come from the same lot: MC2880. Authorities held a press conference advising the public not to take Tylenol for the time being, and Johnson & Johnson issued a recall for all Tylenol from the MC2880 lot. But tainted bottles from other lots were discovered—for example, the pills in Mary McFarland's possession were traced to lots 1910