DR. ROBERT STEIN - Cook County Chief Medical Examiner
Robert Stein knew the Tylenol Capsules were not adulterated at the local retail store by some "madman"
Some Chicago area stores received shipments of Extra-Strength Tylenol capsules on Monday, September 27. Tylenol from the new shipment was put out on the shelves of Jewel Foods and other Chicago area stores on Monday evening and Tuesday morning.
The cyanide laced Extra-Strength Tylenol responsible for the deaths of the first four victims came from the Jewel Foods stores in Elk Grove Village and Arlington Heights.
When police inspected the victim's capsules on Wednesday September 29, less than 24 hours after they'd been purchased, they noticed some capsules were discolored; a result of the corrosive effect of cyanide.
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.
Schaeffer could see immediately that the capsules had begun to deteriorate; ten were slightly swollen and discolored.
Testing the Corrosiveness of the Cyanide
On September 30, Robert Stein and his staff took some of the cyanide used in the tampering, and put it into Tylenol capsules to determine how long it would take before the capsules would show signs of deterioration.
The test capsules showed no corrosion 36 hours after they were filled, Stein said.
Ten days after the test capsules had been filled with cyanide, Stein said that adulteration during distribution could not be ruled out.
Ten days after Steins' test capsules were filed with cyanide, they still showed no signs of deterioration.
If the victim's capsules showed signs of deterioration 1 to 2 days after they'd been delivered to Jewel Foods stores, and if the capsules were poisoned after they'd been placed on the store shelves, how is it possible that 10 days after Dr. Stein put cyanide into new Tylenol capsules, the capsules showed no signs of deterioration?
Robert Stein said on Saturday, October 9, that tests indicate cyanide-loaded Tylenol capsules could have been doctored at their distribution point or at the plant where they were produced.
While Stein emphasized he had no evidence on the origin of the cyanide-laced pills, he said the distribution and manufacturing points could not be ruled out, and criticized investigators for concentrating their search on a "madman," saying the killer strikes him as more of a "a rational evildoer."
The results from Steins' test to determine how long it would take the cyanide used in the Tylenol murders to degrade Tylenol capsules showed that the cyanide would not have caused the capsules to deteriorate quickly, as Attorney General Tyrone Fahner, J&J executives, and FDA officials claimed. The final results of Steins' test were never released.
What Steins' cyanide laced capsules test showed, was that the Tylenol capsules could not have been contaminated after they'd been placed on the store shelves. They had to have been adulterated during distribution. That's why Stein knew that "the distribution and manufacturing points could not be ruled out." That's why Stein believed the killer was not some "madman," but was "a rational evildoer."
Fahner sharply criticized Cook County Medical Examiner Dr. Robert Stein, who said earlier in the day (October 9) that he had completed tests indicating the capsules could have been adulterated at distribution points or at the plant where they were manufactured.
Why did Fahner criticize Stein?
It seems that Fahner criticized Stein's accurate assessment, because it didn't fit the approved theory, which required the public to believe that the Tylenol capsules were contaminated after they'd been placed on the retail store shelves. Fahner said he was relying on tests conducted by the FBI and Chicago police. Investigators have said the capsules blamed for the poisonings came from two different factories. Fahner has said there is no indication the capsules "crossed at any time" during distribution.
First of all, the location where the bulk Tylenol was manufactured is irrelevant - they were all packaged in the same location - and secondly, why would Fahner rely on tests conducted by the FBI and Chicago Police? They didn't test the capsules to determine how long it would take for cyanide to cause the capsules to deteriorate. Robert Stein did those tests. And Robert Stein believed the capsules were contaminated during distribution.
Tyrone Fahner ignored Steins' factual quantifiable evidence, because it didn't fit the approved theory. Attorney General Tyrone Fahner refused to base his investigation on facts gathered from physical evidence.
Robert Stein's scientific test most certainly proved the Tylenol capsules couldn't have been laced with cyanide by some "madman" at the local retail stores; the Tylenol capsules weren't in the stores long enough to show the corrosive signs that were seen in some of the cyanide laced Tylenol capsules (the cyanide laced Tylenol capsules used in the 1986 Tylenol murder were proven to have a very long shelf life; indefinite in fact).
Fahner ignored physical evidence critical to the murder investigation. He investigated what he was told to investigate.
Instead of going after the real killer; the "rational evildoer," Attorney General Tyrone Fahner went after "malcontents and weirdos ". Fahner said at a news conference Sunday night, October 3, 1982, that among the task force's suspects are "malcontents ... and weirdos who don't act right or did something extremely out of the ordinary."
"We're trying to understand what kind of person could do these things," said Fahner, the chief of a local, state and federal task force with more than 100 investigators looking into the string of deaths.
"It is an act of a random murderer who filled the capsules with cyanide and then placed them in the stores," he said.
The goal of Tyrone Fahners' task force was to create "facts" that could be used to indict their chosen suspect; a suspect who they could offer up to the media for public persecution; an innocent suspect like James Lewis.
This same flawed investigative technique would be used in later years to wrongly accuse Richard Jewel of the Atlanta Olympics bombing, and to wrongly accuse Steven Hatfill of the Anthrax attacks.