Thursday, September 30, 1982

By dawn on Thursday the chief toxicologist at the Cook County Medical Examiner’s office was at work examining the remaining capsules from the Tylenol bottles that were found at the Janus and Kellerman homes the previous day.  “I could smell the cyanide as soon as I opened the containers,” said Michael Schaffer.  Ten of the capsules were slightly swollen and discolored, their usual dry white powder replaced with a moist, gray crystalline substance that smelled, characteristically, like bitter almonds.

''It is impossible to tell when the tampering occurred,'' said Schaffer.  ''We tested three capsules from each container of 50, and one of the three from each contained cyanide.''

Test to Detect When the Tylenol Capsules were Adulterated

Schaffer “duplicated the poison formula” and placed some in empty Tylenol capsules to detect approximately when the killer laced the capsules.  Investigators believed they might then be able to trace the original contaminated capsules back to a precise point of time in their distribution.  But they also noted that given the amount of undetected shoplifting these days, someone could remove the bottles, replace the Tylenol medicine in a few capsules with cyanide and then surreptitiously return the contaminated bottles to a store shelf.

The results of these tests were never revealed.

Why?

Because the results did not fit the approved theory. The results would have shown that the cyanide was put into the Tylenol capsules before the Tylenol was delivered to the retail stores. Therefore, the killer could not have been some madman who'd waked into seven stores in the Chicago area and replaced a random number Tylenol capsules, from eight bottles, with cyanide laced Tylenol capsules. The killer worked within the channel of distribution, and was employed by Johnson & Johnson or one of their customers.

October 5, 1982

Toxicologist Michael Schaffer "inspects" McNeil Consumer Products manufacturing plant in Fort Washington.