Thomas Schumpp - In 1991, Schumpp was the assistant deputy director of Illinois State Police when he said that he believed James Lewis, who was serving a 20-year sentence for attempting to extort $1 million from the manufacturers of Tylenol, and for six unrelated mail and credit card violations, was the man who poisoned the Extra-Strength Tylenol capsules that wound up displayed on store shelves in the Chicago suburbs.
"He was and is the No: 1 suspect in my mind," said Schumpp.
In 1992, ten years after the Tylenol murders, Schumpp said, "Over the years my position has been that he [James Lewis] was the prime suspect. In my mind, he remains that. I personally believe he did it,"
Schumpp said that Lewis, a former Chicago resident, timed his move to New York to coincide with the murders.
After investigating the Tylenol murders for ten years, the head of criminal investigations for the Illinois State Police and one of the chief investigators in the Tylenol murder case, Thomas Schumpp, still had it all wrong.
The best evidence Schumpp could come up with to support his "belief" that Lewis was guilty was that his move to New York coincided with the Tylenol murders. In fact, Lewis moved to New York before the Tylenol murders.
Registration records produced by the police showed that during the time the bottles were tampered with, James and his wife LeAnn, were living in a hotel in New York. Further evidence proved that LeAnn was at her job in New York every day at the time, and witnesses claim that James met her everyday for lunch and after work.
According to Newsweek, police were unable to find any bus, train or airline records indicating that the Lewises returned to Chicago during the time when the bottles were tampered with. The evidence proved that Lewis could not have been involved in the Tylenol poisoning.
James Lewis may have been correct when he said, "public officials get in a position and try to find ways of avoiding pressure. They are looking for a scapegoat so they do not have to deal with the fact that they can't find the Tylenol murderer."
Or, maybe public officials didn't really want to find the Tylenol murderer(s).
Former Illinois Attorney General Tyrone Fahner seemed to fear that James Lewis had grounds to sue him for defamation.
"I don't need to have someone who's in prison do some jail-house lawyering and sue me for libel. There are plenty of people in law enforcement who believe he's the one and that's not libelous," said Fahner during a 1992 interview.
Who was Fahner trying to convince; the public? James Lewis? Maybe he was trying to convince himself. It seems that an attorney of Fahners' stature would know that "everybody else was doing it" is a pretty poor defense in a libel case.
Fahner might want to consider that "plenty of people in law enforcement" believed that Richard Jewel planted the pipe bomb at the 1996 Olympic games in Atlanta Georgia. But those people were proven wrong when Eric Rudolph pleaded guilty to carrying out the bombing attack at the Centennial Olympic Park, as well as three other attacks across the South.
Richard Jewel sued for libel and won settlements of $500k in Richard Jewell v. NBC and $15 million in Richard Jewell v. New York Times. Jewel also settled in re: Richard Jewell v. CNN and Richard Jewell v. Piedmont College, for an undisclosed amount.
"Plenty of people in law enforcement" believed Steven Hatfill was guilty of the Anthrax posionings, but in Hatfill v. John Ashcroft, et al. the DOJ paid $5.8 million to settle the lawsuit in which Hatfill claimed the Justice Department violated his privacy rights by speaking with reporters about the case.
I'm not quite sure why James Lewis never sued Mr. Fahner. I guess it's tough to mount a successful legal campaign from behind bars.
In June 1984 Lewis was found guilty of extortion and sentenced to 10 years in prison. The sentence was tacked on to the ten years Lewis was serving for unrelated mail and credit card fraud convictions. Lewis served over twelve years before he was released on parole in October 1995.
During Lewis's sentencing hearing for extortion, U.S. Attorney Dan K. Webb, reiterated his false contention that "the extortion attempt amounted to a confession that he [Lewis] did the Tylenol murders. It also gives him a motive to do the murders," said Webb.
The same day Lewis was sentenced to ten years in prison for attempted extortion, an attempt he knew would fail, Cook County Illinois Judge John M. Murphy was convicted on 24 counts of mail fraud, racketeering and extortion. Murphy was also sentenced to ten years in prison.
A dirty judge was convicted of 24 counts of mail fraud, racketeering and extortion. A nobody was convicted of 1 count of attempted extortion. Both got 10 years.
Prosecution witnesses testified that Murphy accepted money for himself and fixed 100 cases as a favor to his boss, Judge Richard LeFevour. Lewis never received a dime in his 1 extortion attempt, but the dirty judge and the railroaded nobody both got 10 years.