The Tylenol Mafia
Authors: Scott Bartz
Marketing, Murder, and Johnson & Johnson
(Revised 2nd Edition)
By Scott Bartz
New Light Publishing
Cover art by Michael P. Swanson
Copyright © 2011, 2012 by Scott Bartz
All rights reserved.
Scott Bartz
My editor, Linda, the “Write Watchman,” was a true partner in this endeavor. Her expertise and guidance were invaluable to me. Thank you, Linda.
Thank you, Jack O’Dwyer, for your encouragement and journalistic integrity. Jack has long been one of the few voices in the PR industry to call for some accuracy in the way J&J’s handling of the “Tylenol crisis” is reported.
Thank you, Michael P. Swanson, for creating the cover for this book.
I’d like to also thank Michelle Rosen for working tirelessly to dig up important facts about the Tylenol murders investigation. Michelle, along with several other people named in this book, provided critical information that brought this story to life in a way that could not have been done through the documented evidence alone.
Most of all, thank you Anne and Justin.
PART 1
1
________
A man who would soon become notoriously anonymous slipped away unnoticed as Deputy Joseph Chavez pulled into the parking lot at the Howard Johnson’s Motor Lodge and Restaurant in Elgin, Illinois early Tuesday morning, September 28, 1982. Deputy Al Swanson arrived about a minute later and parked next to Chavez in one of fifteen spaces facing Route 25, known locally as Dundee Avenue. The deputies were working the midnight to 8 a.m. shift for the Kane County Sheriff’s Department and were meeting at the all-night restaurant for breakfast.
It was a clear night and about 55 degrees when Swanson and Chavez exited their vehicles at 2:32 a.m., exchanged pleasantries, and headed for the restaurant’s entrance. Chavez glanced down the line of mostly empty parking spaces and saw two cardboard boxes resting on the pavement next to the grass median that ran between the parking lot and Dundee Avenue. The boxes, identical in size, measured about 10 inches wide by 10 inches deep and were 8 inches tall. The labels on the boxes gradually came into focus as the deputies, obviously curious, walked toward them.
The words “EXTRA-STRENGTH TYLENOL CAPSULES” were embossed in bold black uppercase letters on the right half of each box-front. On the left half of each box-front, the Tylenol manufacturer’s name, “
McNEIL
,” was imprinted just below the description of the contents: Twelve 6-packs of 50-count bottles of Extra Strength Tylenol capsules.
One of the boxes was open. Two dozen Tylenol bottles remained in the open box, but two of those bottles were also open. Strewn on the pavement within a few feet of the boxes were hundreds of red and white capsule-parts labeled with the 500-milligram Extra Strength Tylenol dosage mark. In between the boxes was “a big pile of powder that looked as if it had been dumped.”
“It looked like hundreds of capsules had been emptied,” Deputy Chavez said later. “We looked at them and found a couple of capsules that had been put back together.”
Swanson and Chavez scraped up some of the powder and rubbed it between their fingers. They picked up and examined a few of the capsules and capsule-parts. The deputies guessed that the capsules might have been emptied by drug dealers who were planning to mix the acetaminophen with cocaine or some other illegal drug. Still, it was odd that some of the capsule-parts had been refilled and “put back together.” The Tylenol 500mg labels on the reassembled capsules were misaligned as a result.
Before the deputies had time to fully consider the possible implications of what they had found, Swanson suddenly became violently ill, with vomiting, a headache, and dizziness - all symptoms of cyanide poisoning, which can occur from inhalation or absorption through the skin. Deputy Chavez also became sick, with a headache and a strange rash and painful swelling on his arm. They made no immediate connection between the Tylenol capsules and the sudden onset of their mysterious illnesses, so they simply left the boxes of Extra Strength Tylenol capsules right where they found them; sitting in the Howard Johnson’s parking lot at the intersection of Route 25 and Interstate 90, about 38 miles northwest of Chicago.
2
________
Twenty-eight hours after the Kane County deputies left the Elgin Howard Johnson’s Motor Lodge and Restaurant; twelve-year-old Mary Kellerman awoke with a sore throat and a cough on Wednesday morning, September 29, 1982. Mary’s father, Dennis, got out of bed and walked down the hall to check on her. He told Mary that she should stay home from school for the day. Then, he went into the bathroom, opened the medicine cabinet, and grabbed a bottle of Extra Strength Tylenol capsules. Mary’s mom, Jeanna, had purchased the Tylenol about 12 hours earlier at the nearby Jewel-Osco store at 948 Grove Mall in Elk Grove Village, 20 miles east of Elgin. Dennis returned to Mary’s bedroom, gave her one Tylenol capsule, and then went back to bed.
A few minutes later, Dennis heard Mary go into the bathroom and close the door. Then he heard something drop. He got out of bed again and walked back down the hall to the bathroom. “Mary, are you okay?” he asked. He got no response, so he asked again: “Mary, are you okay?” Then he opened the door and saw his daughter lying on the bathroom floor.
When the ambulance arrived several minutes later, Mary was in full cardiac arrest. The paramedics tried to revive Mary at her home, but were unsuccessful. They rushed her to Alexian Brothers Medical Center in Elk Grove Village where she was pronounced dead at about 10:00 a.m. from what the doctors could only guess at the time was an aneurism or a heart attack.
In nearby Arlington Heights, 27-year-old Adam Janus had taken the day off from his job at the Elk Grove Village Post Office. Adam had emigrated from Poland in 1970 in search of the American dream. He went back to Poland in 1975 to marry Teresa, and together they then moved into a modest home in Arlington Heights. Adam had learned to speak English and had gotten a good job as a postal carrier in Arlington Heights. After just four years, Adam had been promoted to the position he currently held as a supervisor at the Elk Grove Village Post Office.
Late Wednesday morning, Adam made a quick trip to the Jewel-Osco store at 122 Vail Avenue in Arlington Heights and bought a steak for dinner, some flowers, and a bottle of Extra Strength Tylenol capsules. Adam returned home and had lunch with Teresa. He then took two Extra Strength Tylenol capsules and told Teresa that he wasn’t feeling well. He went into the bedroom to lie down for a while. A few minutes later Teresa went to check on Adam and found him unconscious and convulsing. She called the Arlington Heights Fire Department at about 2 p.m. When the paramedics arrived, Adam was unconscious, his breathing was labored, his blood pressure dangerously low, and his pupils fixed and dilated. Adam was taken to the emergency room at Northwest Community Hospital and pronounced dead at 3:15 p.m. The emergency room doctor suspected that Adam’s death was the result of a massive heart attack.
“Nothing seemed to help,” said Dr. Thomas Kim, the chief of the hospital’s critical care unit. “He suffered sudden death without warning. It was most unusual.”
*****
Mary Magdalene Reiner, age 27, had checked out of the maternity ward at Central DuPage Hospital in Winfield with her newborn son, Joshua, on Tuesday, September 28, 1982. Mary’s friends and family all called her Lynn. Lynn and her husband Ed had two daughters, Dawn and Michelle; a son, Jacob; and now Joshua. On Wednesday afternoon, September 29
th
, Lynn made a quick trip to Frank’s Finer Foods, a local family-owned grocery store, and bought a bottle of Regular Strength Tylenol capsules. Upon returning home shortly before 3:30 p.m., Lynn went into the living room where her mother-in-law was watching Joshua and her 21-month-old son, Jacob.
Lynn sat down on the living-room couch and went through the bag of free goodies that she had received shortly before checking out of the hospital’s maternity ward the previous day. She put the goodie-bag aside and then took two Extra Strength Tylenol capsules and washed them down with a drink of water. Minutes later, she told her mother-in-law that she felt nauseous. She got up from the couch and walked through the kitchen on her way to the bathroom. Then, suddenly feeling very dizzy, she stopped at the kitchen table and sat down on one of the chairs.