There is a PowerPoint presentation outlining all the evidence in the case, but it’s not shown during the July videoconference on the Tylenol murders.
Everyone on the call has already seen it.
The presentation includes a section on the drawings made by the attempted extortionist shortly before his sentencing. The sketches depict the many ways a person could fill Tylenol capsules with cyanide.
The drawings are extraordinarily detailed.
So detailed, in fact, the U.S. Parole Commission became the first — and, so far, only — government agency to declare someone responsible for the Tylenol murders.
The task force investigating the Tylenol killings doubted that James Lewis would be reckless enough to stay in Manhattan after mailing an extortion letter to Johnson & Johnson demanding $1 million to “stop the killing.”
Lewis, however, kept sending letters from New York in the fall of 1982 with a catch-me-if-you-can swagger that stunned investigators. He wrote to President Ronald Reagan, the Chicago Tribune, the Kansas City Star, the FBI and his wife’s parents in Missouri.
Initially, investigators had viewed Lewis as a heartless opportunist determined to profit off of the poisonings that killed seven people, including a child. But their perspective changed after learning he had been charged in — but not…
