FBI reviewing 1982 Tylenol deaths

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – Federal agents on Wednesday searched the home of a man linked to seven fatal Tylenol poisonings in Illinois in 1982, and the FBI in Chicago said authorities are reviewing evidence in the deaths, which caused a nationwide scare and led to dramatic changes in the way food and medical products are packaged.

No one was ever charged with the deaths of seven people who took the cyanide-laced drugs. The FBI would not immediately confirm the search at the apartment of James W. Lewis was related to the Tylenol case, only that it was part of an ongoing investigation.

Lewis served more than 12 years in prison for sending an extortion note to Johnson & Johnson demanding $1 million to “stop the killing.”

The FBI’s Chicago office cited “advances in forensic technology” in a statement announcing that it, along with Illinois State Police and local departments, was reviewing all evidence in the case.

The review began in part because of publicity and tips that arrived after the 25th anniversary of the deaths in 2007, according to the FBI. It has not resulted in any criminal charges.

Illinois State Police declined to comment Wednesday.

Lewis, an out-of-work accountant, was arrested in December 1982 at a New York City library after a nationwide manhunt. At the time, he gave investigators a detailed account of how the killer might have operated and described how someone could buy medicine, use a special method to add cyanide to the capsules and return them to store shelves.

Lewis later admitted sending the letter and demanding the money, but said he never intended to collect it. He said he wanted to embarrass his wife’s former employer by having the money sent to the employer’s bank account.

Lewis also served two years of a 10-year sentence for tax fraud. In 1978, he was charged in Kansas City with the dismemberment murder of Raymond West, 72, who had hired Lewis as an accountant. The charges were dismissed because West’s cause of death was not determined and some evidence had been illegally obtained.

In 2004, Lewis was charged with rape, kidnapping and other offenses for an alleged attack on a woman in Cambridge. He was jailed for three years while awaiting trial, but prosecutors dismissed the charges on the day his trial was scheduled to begin after the victim refused to testify, according to the office of Middlesex District Attorney Gerry Leone.

Lewis moved to the Boston area after getting out of prison in 1995 and is listed as a partner in a Web design and programming company called Cyberlewis.

Messages left at phone numbers listed to Lewis’s wife, Leanne, and the company were not immediately returned.