The breakable plastic ring on water bottles and milk containers. The plastic “shrink bands” around pickle jars and droppers. The protective film on your yogurt container. The induction seals, also known as the lid under the lid, must be removed when you open a can of chips or a half-gallon of orange juice. Or a bottle of Tylenol.
Hardly a day goes by without us encountering some form of tamper-proof packaging, and for anyone under 50, it's almost always been a part of life, a part of life we rarely stop to look at. reflect, unless it is to curse. the slightest inconvenience.
It's simply what we do. But if you're a true crime buff, a student of Chicago history, or old enough to remember the Tylenol murders that shook the area to its foundations and made national and international news in the fall of 1982, you know there were a time when such safety measures were essentially nonexistent, when someone could smear capsules of extra-strength Tylenol with cyanide and place the boxes on random shelves in the Chicago area, an act of unspeakable monstrosity that left seven innocent people dead.
In the well-researched, thoroughly reported, sobering and at times heartbreaking five-part docuseries “Painkiller: The Tylenol Murders,” premiering Tuesday on Paramount+, studios WBBM Films/CBS Chicago and See It Now revisit the tragic events that took place more than 40 years ago. years ago, expertly weaving archival footage with new interviews with a handful of witnesses and family members whose lives were greatly and forever impacted by the murders. While the case remains open, the series leaves little doubt about who most investigators and many journalists believe was the killer. (It is a name known to anyone with even a modicum of familiarity with the case.)
“Painkiller” does an impressive job of presenting the story in a way that will refresh the memories of those who were in Chicago in 1982 and are old enough to remember the chilling and shocking news, and of viewers who, at best, , they might have a passing experience. familiarity with the case. The premiere episode sets the tone for the period piece, as we see clips from 1982, including Frank Sinatra singing “My Kind of Town” at Chicagofest at Navy Pier. We heard the story of the Janus family, who lost three members, each of whom took Tylenols from a single bottle. On September 29, 1982, 27-year-old postal worker Adam Janus was rushed to Northwest Community Hospital in Arlington Heights, where he was pronounced dead at 3:15 p.m. Although Adam was a healthy young man with no known heart problems, doctors logically assumed that he had died of a heart attack.
Charles Kramer, a lieutenant with the Arlington Heights Fire Department at the time, remembers being called to Adam's house, where the entire Janus family had gathered, including Adam's brother Stanley, 25, and his wife, Theresa, 19 years old. “There was a young man… on the ground. ...This is Stanley. The paramedics were working on him. … A young woman came up, she was hysterical, her newly married husband was on the floor… and she was grabbing my arm, and the next thing I knew she was moaning and collapsing right next to me… ”Stanley died that day. Teresa died two days later.
Retired nurse Helen Jensen, now 85, remembers, "The only thing these three people had in common was Tylenol." Six pills were missing and three people had died. Jensen took it upon himself to play detective and found a receipt for the Tylenol bottle in the trash. She went to the emergency room and presented the evidence to the police and the medical examiner, and she says, “They laughed at me. …These young fools who don't know beans from apple butter. … I said this is it, this is what is causing these people to die. "They are not going to listen to me, I am a nurse, a woman."
When news broke that 12-year-old Mary Kellerman of Elk Grove Village had died that same morning after taking extra-strength Tylenol, the connection was undeniable and shocking. Over the next few days, 35-year-old Mary McFarland of Elmhurst, 35-year-old Paula Prince of Old Town, and 27-year-old Mary Weiner of Winfield died suddenly after taking Tylenol.
"This was a stone-cold mystery," says retired WBBM-TV producer Ed Marshall. "It was a scary moment." Throughout the five episodes, we hear from former and current law enforcement personnel involved in the investigation, as well as iconic Chicago media figures such as John "Bulldog" Drummond and Chinta Strausberg as they remember the investigation. Currently, journalist Brad Edwards is trying to locate James Lewis, who was convicted of extortion after sending a letter to Johnson & Johnson, demanding a million dollars to stop the murders, but was never charged with the deaths of the seven victims. . (The search takes place before Lewis died last July at age 71.) A handful of other suspects were in play, but investigators always came back to Lewis, who steadfastly maintained his innocence in the actual murders.
“Painkiller: The Tylenol Murders” serves as a valuable piece of solid, fact-based journalism, but it is also a poignant reminder of how these absolutely random and horribly cruel crimes stole the lives of seven good people and caused anguish to hundreds of loved ones. . . An incredibly impressive Isabel Janus, who is only 13 years old and lost her aunt and two great uncles, reads a report she wrote herself and says: “The world now has new packaging [and] security seals for its protection. …I will continue to try to find answers to this horrible tragedy. I truly believe that justice will be served, if not in this life, then at least in the next. In memory of Adam Janus, Stanley Janus and Theresa Janus.”
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