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Tylenol extortionist dies, naturally [1]
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Date: 2023-07-10
Rest in Powder
In 1978, he was charged with murder in the death of Raymond West, a 72-year-old man from Kansas City, Mo., who had hired him as an accountant.
Mr. West’s dismembered and decomposed body was found hanging from a pulley in his attic the same day Mr. Lewis tried to cash a forged check on Mr. West’s account. The case was dismissed after the judge found that the police did not inform Mr. Lewis of his rights at the time of his arrest.
In 1983, Mr. Lewis was convicted on six counts of mail fraud in connection with a scheme to obtain credit cards by using information from clients of his tax preparation service in Kansas City in 1981.
James W. Lewis, the prime suspect in the deaths of seven people in 1982 from cyanide-laced Tylenol, a poisoning that terrified the nation and changed the way manufacturers packaged medications, died on Sunday in Cambridge, Mass. He was 76.
Mr. Lewis was pronounced dead after the authorities responded to a report of an unresponsive person at his home, Superintendent Frederick Cabral of the Cambridge Police Department said on Monday. The cause of death was “not suspicious,” Superintendent Cabral said, declining to comment further.
Mr. Lewis spent more than four decades under scrutiny in connection with the notorious unsolved poisonings, in which someone laced Extra-Strength Tylenol with deadly potassium cyanide, killing seven people in the Chicago area in September and October of 1982.
www.nytimes.com/...
The Chicago Tribune reported last year that some investigators were still pushing for Lewis to be prosecuted, and that Lewis said he’s been treated unfairly and continued to deny involvement.
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