It was 40 years ago, with the timing in September and October 1982, which marked the Tylenol Murders.
This case, which is officially not solved, happened in and around Chicago, Illinois.
Bottles of Tylenol Extra Strength, at which time were in capsule form, were tampered with and injected with cyanide.
The Tylenol Murders claimed the lives of seven, including three family members (two who later took from the same bottle belonging to the deceased first), and it required detective-like work by nurse Helen Jensen—after those family members died—to figure out it was the pills. (She worked the case with now-retired Chuck Kramer, now 81, at which time he was a fire department lieutenant in Arlington Heights.) All the victims, including one child, were under the age of 40. As now-retired Jensen, now 85, tells it: Her theory was initially dismissed. “I went back to the emergency room, presented it [the theory of that particular bottle of Tylenol pills being poisoned] to the medical examiner and the police, and they laughed at me.” Jensen also described the case as follows: “It was probably one of the first acts of domestic terrorism.”
I was 11 years old. My sense of this, at the time, was a panic which had people—from everywhere—figuring this could happen anywhere. (It did quite a hit job on the business of Johnson & Johnson. The manufacturer recalled more than 30 million bottles.)
My late paternal grandmother, who regularly watched local and network news, would often say, for any news reports involving destructive and sickening crimes, “What is this world coming to?”
With the timing on the calendar closely connected to Halloween, this also changed—to some extent—how parents handled allowing their children to celebrate the holiday; whether to continue their neighborhood Trick-or-Treating tradition for its intended fun…and for the candy. (Frankly: It was even before 1982. The 1981 film sequel Halloween II includes a scene of a boy taken to the hospital by his mother because he came in contact with a tampered product.)
One thing good came from this: It changed the industry for the ways it packages over-the-counter medicines and other products.
There is a podcast (to which I will not provide a link; it came to my attention only shortly before having completed writing and setting this blog topic to publish), and it is titled Unsealed: The Tylenol Murders (AT WILL MEDIA, The Chicago Tribune). I have not yet listened to it. It has several episodes. I intend to check out, at the very minimum, its first.
I encourage interested readers to not only watch the above video, which is a news segment by CBS Chicago (WBBM–TV, Ch. 02), but to also read some material which follows this paragraph (for some more general information).
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