The Tylenol Mafia (19 page)

On Saturday, October 2
^nd
, the local Arlington Heights newspaper,
The Daily Herald
, reported that the potential contamination had broadened Friday, as the poison had been found in three new batches of pills. These batches, 1910MD, 1665LM and MC2884, were added to the danger list on Friday, reported
The Daily Herald
. Late Friday night, shortly before midnight, officials said the cyanide-laced Tylenol that killed Paula Prince was from Lot 1801MA.

As of Friday night, authorities had publicly linked cyanide-laced Extra Strength Tylenol capsules from their specific lot numbers to each of the poisoning victims, with the exception of Lynn Reiner. The cyanide-laced Tylenol that killed Mary Kellerman and the Januses was from Lot MC2880. The poisoned Tylenol that killed Mary McFarland was from Lot 1910MD. The cyanide-laced Tylenol that killed Paula Prince was from Lot 1801MA.

For a number of reasons, Lynn Reiner’s cyanide-laced Extra Strength Tylenol capsules probably came from Lot 1665LM, rather than Lot MC2884. Tylenol from Lot MC2884, like the Tylenol from Lot MC2880, had been manufactured at McNeil’s Fort Washington plant in the spring of 1982. The Tylenol from Lot 1665LM had been manufactured at McNeil’s Round Rock plant in 1981.

McNeil sold the Tylenol from Lot 1665LM under an NDC (New Drug Code) for unit-dose Extra Strength Tylenol capsules, which wholesalers distributed in containers of 100 to 1,000 capsules only to hospitals and other institutional pharmacies. The Tylenol from Lots MC2880 and MC2884, since it was sold under the NDC for 50-count bottles of Extra Strength Tylenol capsules, was distributed to retailers.

Tylenol from Lot MC2884 must have been in the second contaminated bottle found at the Osco Drug store in Woodfield Mall, whereas Lynn’s cyanide-laced Extra Strength Tylenol capsules must have been from Lot 1665LM. The Tylenol from both these lots was shipped to Illinois through J&J’s regional distribution center in Montgomeryville.

On Saturday, October 2
^nd
, lot numbers 1665LM and MC2884, were inexplicably removed from the “danger list” of cyanide-laced Tylenol lot numbers. The danger list now included only three lot numbers: MC2880, 1910MD, and 1801MA.

On Sunday, October 3
^rd
, police - probably the Winfield police – told reporters for
The Daily Herald
and the Associated Press that they had identified a fourth lot number involved in the deaths. Police said Lynn Reiner had capsules from Lot 1833MB. But this was the lot number for Lynn’s bottle of Regular Strength Tylenol capsules - not her Extra Strength Tylenol capsules. Lynn’s coroner’s report confirms that “one bottle labeled Regular Strength Tylenol, Lot 1833MB,” was submitted to the lab by DuPage County Chief Deputy Coroner, Peter Siekmann, on Thursday, September 30
^th
.

Interestingly, police did not say that Lynn had
taken
Tylenol capsules from Lot 1833MB, only that she
had
capsules from Lot 1833MB. Police explained that there had been “initial confusion over the lot number” in the Lynn Reiner case because “she apparently had mixed Extra-Strength Tylenol capsules with her Regular Strength Tylenol capsules.” Obviously, there could only have been confusion if there were two lot numbers to confuse. Yet, with just one brief news release, authorities had effectively replaced Lot 1665LM with Lot 1833MB, and thus buried the lot number of the poisoned Extra Strength Tylenol that had killed Lynn Reiner.

Winfield Police Officer Scott Watkins, now Lieutenant Watkins of the Lombard Police Department, was asked on August 19, 2010 what he knew about the investigation of Central DuPage Hospital as the probable source of Lynn Reiner’s cyanide-laced Extra Strength Tylenol capsules. He said he was unaware of any such investigation. When pressed further to offer some insight about the investigation that certainly must have included Central DuPage Hospital, Watkins shrugged his shoulders. It was the view of officials at that time, he said, that the tamperings were done at the retail stores.

When asked how authorities were able to identify the lot number for Lynn’s Extra Strength Tylenol capsules, Watkins replied, “I don’t know.”

Watkins also said that on Thursday morning, September 30, 1982, he and other investigators had searched through Reiner’s trash can and recovered the box for Lynn’s bottle of Regular Strength Tylenol. That trash can is probably also where they found the unit-dose package for Lynn’s Extra Strength Tylenol capsules. Printed on Lynn’s unit dose package were the lot number of her Extra Strength Tylenol capsules and the name of the Central DuPage Hospital pharmacy where they had been dispensed. Officials never disclosed the name of the distributor that delivered the poisoned Tylenol capsules to Central DuPage Hospital, but they did spend a great deal of time questioning employees at the largest distributor of Tylenol to hospitals in the Chicago area - the Louis Zahn Drug Company.

19

________

When Central DuPage Hospital converted its pharmacy to a unit-dose system in 1974, it also contracted with a local distributor to manage its inventory and provide frequent deliveries of drugs and other products to its pharmacy. Distributors make “just in time” deliveries to hospital pharmacies, usually several times per week. This system allows pharmacies to keep very low inventory levels and thus reduce costs.

The distribution company that gained the pharmacy-service-provider contract for Central DuPage Hospital is the same distribution company that delivered the cyanide-laced Extra Strength Tylenol capsules to the hospital’s pharmacy. Those poisoned capsules had already been filled with cyanide before they were loaded onto the delivery truck at the distribution center and then delivered to the pharmacy at Central DuPage Hospital.

On October 1
^st
, and again on October 6
^th
, 1982, ABC-News showed video footage of cases containing seventy-two 50-count bottles of Extra Strength Tylenol capsules inside the Louis Zahn Drug Company’s Melrose Park warehouse. Those Tylenol cases were just like the ones that deputies Al Swanson and Joseph Chavez had found in the parking lot at the Howard Johnson’s Motor Lodge and Restaurant in Elgin at 2:32 a.m. Tuesday, September 28
^th
. Cases of Extra Strength Tylenol capsules were also in many other warehouses in Illinois at that time, but the Louis Zahn Drug Company likely was the pharmacy service provider that delivered the cyanide-laced Extra Strength Tylenol capsules to Central DuPage Hospital.

Louis Zahn founded the Louis Zahn Drug Company (Zahn Drug) in Melrose Park, Illinois, in 1931. In 1982, Zahn Drug was the largest independent drug wholesaler in the Midwest. It provided warehousing, merchandising, and purchasing management services to retail and institutional pharmacies, and stocked prescription drugs, OTC drugs, healthcare products, and a variety of other items normally stocked in drugstores. The company maintained its own delivery operation; leasing trucks and hiring union drivers to deliver drugs and healthcare products to pharmacies, retail stores, nursing homes, and hospitals. The company’s headquarters and primary distribution center were located at 1930 George Street, five blocks east of Jewel’s Melrose Park distribution center and about five blocks southeast of Jewel’s repackaging and distribution warehouse in Franklin Park.

When Louis Zahn died in 1976, the company’s majority ownership transferred to his son, Melvyn Zahn, who ran the company until 1989. The company’s chief operating officer since January 1982 was William P. Altman. Prior to joining Zahn Drug, Altman was vice president of Jewel Companies’ subsidiary Osco Drug.

The CFO of Zahn Drug, John Stockman, had been with the company since 1971. He left Zahn Drug in 1983 to become CFO of PRIDE (Prison Rehabilitative Industries and Diversified Enterprises) in Clearwater, Florida. Stockman began his career in 1964 as a store auditor for Walgreens in Chicago.

Louis Zahn was a well-known business leader in Chicago, and a long-time resident of Oak Park when he died from cancer at age 67. He had been a director of the White Sox and Sears Bank and Trust Company, and the honorary and former chairman of the Israel Bonds and Jewish National Fund. He was one of the founders and the first president of Gottlieb Memorial Hospital in Melrose Park, an original member of its Board of Governors, and the donor of the hospital’s first pharmacy. Zahn had also been the president of the West Towns Hospital Association.

Zahn Drug was the prime vendor for a group purchasing organization that consisted of hospitals affiliated with Chicago’s Northwestern Memorial Hospital. The hospitals in this group entered orders through an electronic data interchange communication system for hospital products manufactured by Baxter International, Abbot Laboratories, and Johnson & Johnson.

In 1982, Zahn Drug operated a state-of-the-art Automated Order Picking System at its Melrose Park headquarters. The company’s “Itematic” order fulfillment system was designed for extremely high throughput of a relatively small number of Stock Keeping Units (SKU’s). The Itematic was one of the most advanced systems of the time, with the capacity to select and deliver a variety of products in less than full-case quantities. Each customer’s order was entered into the system’s computer, and the system then automatically delivered the items to a workstation where they were manually picked (taken out of the bin) by a warehouse employee. The system used a number of rotating carousels, each having four columns of ten bins. The carousels moved along an oval track to the picking station and then rotated so the bin holding the appropriate item faced the human operator. A light on the bin containing the ordered item then lit up, and the warehouse employee picked the item from that bin and placed it into a tote (a plastic container). This process was repeated until all items from the order were picked and placed into the tote. The tote, containing the products and a shipping document, was then sent down a conveyor belt to a packing station. A warehouse employee packaged the items in a carton that was then loaded onto a delivery truck.

The capacity of the system at Zahn Drug was approximately 1,600 orders per day with 53 pieces per order; a rate of 850 items per hour for each of the 12 Itematic picking machines in the system. The 12 machines each contained approximately 8,000 items typical of those found at the corner drugstore. The system selected or “picked” items, such as bottles, cassettes, vials, and other individually packaged items. The system’s carousel-bins had to be manually replenished.

The video footage shown on ABC-News of the Zahn Drug warehouse showed only the warehouse area where the cases of Tylenol bottles were stored. It did not show the company’s 12 automated picking machines or the company’s employees manually loading the picking machines and manually filling individual stores’ orders. Based on the video footage shown on ABC, it appeared that everything was just as J&J and the FDA had claimed. It looked like Zahn Drug received cases of 72 bottles of Extra Strength Tylenol capsules from McNeil, and then shipped those cases, unopened, to retail stores and hospitals. But that’s not how the process actually worked.

In reality, warehouse employees opened the Tylenol cases and put the individual Tylenol bottles into the appropriate bins in the automated picking machines. A second employee, a “picker,” placed the Tylenol bottles from each order into a tote. Then, a third employee, working at the packing station, manually handled the Tylenol bottles again as he packaged the ordered items into boxes to be delivered to local retail stores and hospitals. Zahn Drug filled orders for bottles of Extra Strength Tylenol capsules in multiples of one bottle - not in full cases of 72 bottles as Johnson & Johnson and the FDA had indicated.

Zahn Drug also employed merchandisers who set up store-displays and restocked the store’s shelves with health and beauty care products. These employees provided the same type of services as the rack jobbers who worked for
Sav
-A-Stop, delivering Tylenol and other products to the local stores and placing them on the store’s shelves.

Bottles of Extra Strength Tylenol capsules were rarely delivered to retail customers by the full case of 72 bottles. Rather, they were delivered in multiples of six Tylenol bottles or one Tylenol bottle, depending on how the picking system was set up. Retail stores and hospital pharmacies received just-in-time deliveries of drugs and other products. Most retail stores ordered just enough Tylenol bottles to cover sales until the next shipment arrived, typically, no more than a week later.

Managers at Jewel stores told NBC-News that they were selling one or two bottles of Extra Strength Tylenol capsules per day. For those stores, a typical weekly order would have been around a dozen bottles of Extra Strength Tylenol capsules. The 165,000 stores nationwide that sold Tylenol sold an average of just one or two bottles of Extra Strength Tylenol capsules per week. They did not order Extra Strength Tylenol capsules by full cases of 72 bottles. In most cases, the ordering was left to rack jobbers and merchandisers who manually restocked the store’s shelves about once per week with just enough bottles to fill the displays.

Employees at distribution centers operated by wholesalers like Zahn Drug could have easily put cyanide-laced Tylenol capsules into the Tylenol bottles at the warehouse. The more likely scenario, however, is that the Tylenol killer dumped cyanide-laced Tylenol capsules into the bottling production lines at a repackaging facility in Illinois. That facility might have been operated by Jewel Companies, Zahn Drug, or some other local company. One thing is certain - whoever left those two cases of Extra Strength Tylenol capsules in the Howard Johnson’s parking lot had taken them from a local warehouse. That person obviously had access to Tylenol in the channel of distribution.