Killer Stories with Harvey Guillén - The Chicago Tylenol Murders Pt. 2

Episode Date: October 6, 2022

If Roger Arnold wasn’t behind the murders, who was? Police turn their focus to a new suspect: a disgruntled accountant named James Lewis. But the more police dig into Lewis’s life, the more questions they have. The road ahead is paved with extortion, false identities, and revenge. This is a crossover special with Conspiracy Theories. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi listeners, it's Vanessa. Every week I take you into the minds and madness of serial killers. Today I'm teaming up again with Carter Roy from conspiracy theories to explore Chicago's Tylenol murders, which happened 40 years ago this week. Today, we'll dive into the psyche of one of the authorities' suspects and evaluate the idea of his involvement in the poisonings. Due to the sensitive nature of today's episode, listener discretion is advised. This episode includes discussions

of homicide and dismemberment. We advise extreme caution for children under 13. On October 6, 1982, a dozen federal and state agents hovered outside the lakeside travel agency where the so-called mad poisoner worked. The officers stormed into the small office, blocking the exits and surrounding the cold-blooded killer at his desk. The officers weren't sure how things would go. Maybe he'd calmly rise from his seat, resigned to his capture.

Or maybe he'd resist arrest and go out with a final bang. But Frederick Miller McKayey did neither. Instead, he just sat there, stunned. As police stared at the entrepreneur, they quickly realized he wasn't their guy. It's not clear why they came to that conclusion, but perhaps it was McKayhee's absolute shock. at being arrested. The seasoned agents who'd executed the raid eventually realized he wasn't their man.

The real killer was still out there. Welcome to the Tylenol murders. This is a 40th anniversary series presented by conspiracy theories and serial killers. Spotify originals from Parcast. I'm your host Carter Roy. And I'm your host, Vanessa Richardson. For these three episodes, we're taking a deep dive into the the Tylenol murders of 1982.

This grim series of homicides sent citizens into a nationwide panic and changed our relationship to over-the-counter medicine forever. You can find episodes of serial killers, conspiracy theories, and all other Spotify originals from Parcast for free exclusively on Spotify. Last time we heard about a ransom letter that landed on the doorstep of Johnson & Johnson from a man claiming to be the Tylenol killer. After a few wrong turns, the task force discovered the writer's identity, accountant James Lewis. Today, we'll investigate why the authorities once believed a Lewis might be the man behind the slangs. We'll explore his violent childhood and hear about a gruesome Kansas City homicide he was accused of committing. Finally, we'll follow the nationwide manhunt for the Tylenol Man. Next time we'll explore more conspiracy theories.

about the mass murder, including some questions about whether Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber, may have had something to do with it. We'll also explore the Tylenol murder's lasting legacy and whether there's still danger out there. We have all that and more coming up. Stay with us. This episode is brought to you by Shopify. Bonnie and Clyde, the lonely hearts killers, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. These are infamous criminal duels. But you don't need to break any loss to find your perfect business partner because you have Shopify.

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When he was just two years old, his father left his mother to fend for herself and her three children. After their mother abandoned them in a Missouri motel, social workers broke up the siblings. For little Theodore, it was a traumatic moment. After that intervention, he never lived with his biological mother or sisters again. Instead, the state sent the boy to live with new parents in another town who renamed him James. While his adoptive mom, Charlotte Lewis, labored in a garment factory, he grew up in the shadow. of an explosives plant. At home, James, or Jim, as most called him, was a lot to handle.

His adoptive father tried to take care of him, but he was such a burden on the family that, according to his cousin Lucille, Charlotte allegedly tried to return him to the adoption agency. Lucille in a 1982 interview compared him to a rattlesnake, always ready to strike. When Jim was 12, his adoptive dad died. from a stroke. For the second time in Jim's life, he lost a father figure. Suddenly, Charlotte became a single parent with an overactive child in a home without plumbing and electricity. Charlotte did her best with the circumstances, but Jim was another story. At school, he was studious

and well-behaved, but at home, she feared him. When he was 19, Jim attempted to take his own life and was committed to a Missouri state mental hospital. Once there, he told authorities at the hospital that the violent outbursts and his suicide attempt were just an elaborate ploy hatched by his family so he could avoid the Vietnam draft. His story may have convinced them. Sometime later, Jim was released from the facility

and began college. There, he met the love of his life, a brainy, bookish woman named Leanne Miller. They quickly grew close and married on Thanksgiving Day, 1968. Leanne and Jim were a great match. They both wore large, chunky glasses, and enjoyed long discussions of technology and politics. She was enamored with his soft-spoken intelligence, but there was one major difference between them. Leanne was steady and hard-working.

She kept them afloat financially. Jim was still the unpredictable and angry kid who'd been abandoned at that motel. He was unstable and often let his emotions get in the way of his own success. At work, he'd blow up on his bosses and had trouble keeping his resentment in check. One coworker said that after a minor disagreement, he didn't talk to her for months. A longtime acquaintance said, quote, he has ice in his veins. likely because of this, Jim had trouble keeping a job. So in the early 1970s, Leanne and Jim opened their own company,

Lewis and Lewis Business Tax Service, and a neglected part of Kansas City. But Jim seemed to prefer chasing wild side hustles over taxes and financial reports. For instance, in 1975, Jim and Leanne launched a business venture called Algeve International, with an Indian-born pharmacist. The idea was simple. They'd import pharmaceutical machines from India and sell them to the U.S. market. The same year, Leanne and Jim

opened their import business, they moved to a house not far from one of their clients, an elderly man named Raymond West. At a healthy 72 years old, West was a stalwart in the neighborhood. He spent his days gardening and reading the newspaper on his porch. Sometimes he'd make his work

to the florist, where he'd donate his used newspapers so they could use them to wrap bouquets in. Then, in July 1978, West disappeared. When police came to investigate, they questioned people who knew West, including his taxman, Jim Lewis. Jim told authorities that West took a trip to the Ozarks for three or four days with his girlfriend, which possibly satisfied the Kansas City cops, but to West's law. longtime friend Charles Banker, that explanation seemed impossible. In the 30 years Charles had known West, he'd never once told him about a romantic relationship. Three days after West went missing, Charles and the cops broke into West's home,

searching for clues. Everything appeared in order, but there was a handwritten note on the coffee table. It read, quote, please don't disturb until after one, sleeping late, Raymond. Charles was immediately distressed. It wasn't Ray's handwriting, and Ray never referred to himself as Raymond. He went by Ray, always Ray. Except when he signed checks,

such as for the bank, the grocery store, or for his tax man. Charles was now more confused than ever about what had happened to his old friend, but he knew that since moving into the neighborhood, Jim had spent a lot of time at West's house, and that Jim's explanation to the police didn't sound right. Feeling paranoid, Charles affixed new padlocks to West's front door and garage. He didn't want anyone to tamper with the possible crime scene.

As Charles bent over the garage, he heard a voice shout at him, asking what he was doing. He turned and saw a furious, this Jim running straight at him with a hammer. Eventually, Jim calmed down, but instead of leaving, he watched Charles from a parked car across the street, sending a clear message, quit meddling or else. But Charles didn't back down. And after 21 days of his good friend being gone,

he was desperate for answers. He opened the locks on West's door and entered the building alone. It was mid-August and a balmy 94 degrees. As soon as he stepped into the house, he smelled a terrible stench wafting through the humid air. He walked into the spare bedroom where he saw some linens on the floor. Slowly he lifted the sheet with his foot. His heart sank when he saw what was underneath. Dried blood.

When the cops entered the house, the smell hit them too. like a heavy putrid wave. Charles followed them to the bedroom where they noticed an eerie stain seeping from the ceiling and down the wall. They got a ladder, entered the attic, and held their breath.

A partially decomposing torso was lying face down, dressed in a polo shirt. The person had been tied up with intricately knotted rope. Their lower body severed cleanly from the hips down. Each leg, wrapped in a sheet, lay on either side of the corpse like afterthoughts.

The body was badly decomposed, but given the circumstances, it must have seemed obvious that this man was Ray West. Hanging from the rafters, they found a pulley-like contraption. The killer must have used to hoist the body, the kind used to skin a deer. But by that point, West's corpse was. so decayed they didn't know the cause of death. But there was one other clue. A check for $5,000 was drawn from West Bank account the same day he went missing. And it was addressed to his tax man, Jim Lewis.

Kansas City Police tossed Jim into a cell. He tried to explain himself by saying the old man loaned him the money, but this excuse was flimsy to Charles. When he loaned somebody five bucks, Charles would joke that he was a big spender. There's no way he'd give 5,000 to someone, he told the police. With all signs suggesting that Jim may have had something to do with West's death, authorities asked him to sign consent to search forms. Jim scoffed at the request and said, quote,

I'll sign it, but I think you guys are fishing. If so, they reeled in quite a catch. On the front seat of Jim's car, they found 34 canceled checks and a black briefcase filled with documents, all belonging to West. And wedged into the tire well, 20 feet of similar intricately knotted rope that was tied around West's body. Detectives were assured they'd caught Jim, hook, line, and sinker. Or so they thought. Coming up, Jim gets his first taste of fish.

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All over smooth, all day comfort, vanity fair lingerie. Find yours at Target today. Now back to the story. Four years before he became a suspect in Chicago's Tylenol murders, James Lewis was tied to the brutal murder of Raymond West in Kansas City. An eager 24-year-old detective named David Barton was put in charge of the investigation and built a case against Jim. When Barton talked to one of Jim's friends, she said her 30,

two-caliber pistol had gone missing, right after Jim tried to buy it from her. Additionally, Jim's defense team revealed that as a member of the future farmers of America, he knew how to butcher livestock, which seemed relevant because Wes's legs were chopped off clean, like two hunks of meat. Barton knew all signs pointed to Jim as the killer. And less than a month after West's body was found, a grand jury charged him with murder. But Jim claimed innocence. His attorney argued that the cops neglected to read his Miranda rights, so the incriminating evidence found in Jim's car, from the rope to the checks,

was inadmissible. In the end, the case was dismissed. It was a shocking close to Detective Barton, who'd spent so much time trying to solve West's murder. The young detective kept the details in his mind. They were so close to putting Jim behind bars and they'd fallen short. So two years later, when Barton heard rumors that Jim Lewis was engaged in some sort of mail fraud scheme, he jumped. Barton started tailing the accountant, hoping to catch him in the act. Finally, on a country road in Kansas one day in late 1980, he said he witnessed Jim take the contents from a mailbox, then pick up the whole mailbox and chuck it into his trunk.

Barton had caught on to the scheme. Jim was ordering credit cards for his tax clients and taking them from the mail. But just after Barton got a search warrant for his arrest, Jim ran. Leanne and Jim packed their whole lives into their mid-sized car and high-tailed it to Chicago. On the run, the Lewis's moved into a Lincoln Park boarding house and changed their names. Goodbye, Jim and Leanne. Hello, Robert and Nancy Richardson. Or as their neighbors knew them, plain old Bob and Nancy.

Jim was no stranger to adopting new names to avoid the cops. One news report said he maintained as many as 20 different aliases. In Chicago, though, the couple seemed to have lived a regular life. Leanne found bookkeeping work at a travel agency. Jim walked the woman he loved hand in hand. to her bus stop in the morning and home at the end of the day. Meanwhile, while spending his time bouncing between jobs, Jim read textbooks so he could dazzle neighbors with lofty discussions of history, psychology, and money.

He put on a good performance. One neighbor said they thought Jim was the smartest man they ever met. Another said, quote, he could talk to you about any subject and convince you that no matter how much you knew, he knew more. But soon, trouble was on the horizon. The owner of the company Leanne worked for was Frederick McKayhee, an heir to the Miller brewing fortune. Unfortunately, the beer successor didn't have his family's knack for business.

After apparently diverting company funds to pay off his own debts, the company went down faster than a glass of light beer. As bookkeeper, Leanne saw the end coming. In April 1982, Lakeside officially shuttered, and she took a couple stamped envelopes with her on the way out, like a parting gift to herself. When the final paychecks went out, all the checks bounced. Leanne was stiffed $512, but based on how Jim reacted, you'd think McKayhee screwed her out of her entire savings. Even though he didn't work at the agency, Jim was present with his wife, and the other employees in a legal battle to recover their lost wages.

But there was nothing left to claim. The employees received no compensation. Jim was furious. Despite his showboating, he and his wife were always on the verge of going broke. He handled money for a living, but he was always stuck in the lower middle class. When McKayee took $500 from the couple, it's very possible he had screwed them out of their life savings. So perhaps that's what made Jim so angry. While the other employees moved on, the Lewis's weren't ready to let this grudge go.

One of the lawyers in the dispute said the couple was, quote, very adamant that McKayee was a crook and should be made to pay. On September 6, 1982, under several different aliases, Jim and Leanne fled to Manhattan and checked into a rundown boarding house called the Rutledge Hotel. Leanne got a job on September 20th, and according to Jim, they never returned to Chicago. This was Jim's main defense for why he couldn't have committed the Tylenol murders, because he was in New York, but some don't buy it. A former Johnson & Johnson Senior Executive told ABC News that many close to the case

believed the culprit had flown into Chicago and distributed the pills at local pharmacies before booking it out of town. Meanwhile, as the national news blasted warnings about the deadly medicine, Jim sat down, took out a favorite writing utensil from one of his fancy pen sets, and wrote in all caps, ransom note. It said, quote, As you can see, it is easy to place cyanide, both potassium and sodium, into capsules sitting on store shelves.

and since the cyanide is inside the gelatin, it is easy to get buyers to swallow the bitter pill. It takes so very little, end quote. He then demanded $1 million to stop the carnage, and he listed a bank account number for the transfer. Frederick McKahey's. He popped the letter into one of the lakeside envelopes Leanne had taken from the travel agency and sent it off to Johnson and Johnson. He assumed the FBI would take McKayy in and work him up and down to figure out if he was responsible for the murders. While they were at it, Jim thought they'd discover his despicable white-collar crimes.

Jim would get his payback. The task force followed the clues, the account number, the lakeside travel envelope, but when they raided the agency looking for a deranged killer, they realized almost immediately that McKayhee had been set up. And suspicion quickly fell on Jim. Or, as McKayee knew him, Robert Richardson. On October 13th, a warrant was put out for Jim's arrest. They weren't sure if he'd used the tragedy to frame McKayy

or was actually the killer himself. Either way, they needed to take him in for questioning. Jim saw the writing on the wall. According to him, he sat Leanne down and told her about the letter to Johnson and Johnson. It's hard to say what he expected. Gratitude, admiration. The notoriety was something he may have fantasized about his whole life, but instead what he got was stunned silence. Leanne stared despondent at the wall. Finally, she asked him, quote, how could you have done such a thing?

Perhaps she knew that before long, the full weight of the FBI would be upon them. By the end of the week, the entire nation would know Jim and Leanne's faces. Jim had taken the poison of resentment, and now they would both suffer for it. Coming up, an old nemesis helps bring Jim Lewis down. Snoring, gasping during sleep, feeling fatigued, ask your doctor about zebbound, terseptite. The first and only FDA-approved prescription medicine for moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea, OSA and adults with obesity. Zepbound is a prescription medicine used with a reduced calorie diet and increased physical activity to help adults with moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea, OSA, and obesity to improve their OSA. Zetbound is approved as a 2.5, 5, 7.5, 10, 12.5, or

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Jim Lewis tried to frame his wife's old boss by writing a ransom letter to Johnson & Johnson, but the plan backfired. Now he and Leanne were on the run. Since early September, the Lewis's had gone undetected, hold up in a low-cost hotel in Manhattan. But by mid-October, their photos were broadcast nationwide, with their aliases Robert and Nancy Richardson.

The news coverage of their story rivaled the JFK assassination in intensity. Staying hidden was getting harder. Two weeks after the mass murder, one of the hotel's owners confronted Jim in the lobby. He said Jim looked oddly familiar and asked if he'd been a previous tenant in a different building. He couldn't quite place it. Only later did he remember where he'd seen his bearded face on Nightline. The Lewis's didn't stick around for another close call. The fugitive couple changed their aliases again, Edward and Carol.

Scott and escaped to an even more squalid hotel. Cockroaches seeped from the corners of their new room. A few days later, one of Leanne's co-workers recognized her from the news. She called the NYPD. Now the task force knew the Lewis's were in New York. A hundred cops and FBI agents descended onto Manhattan. They combed every inch of the Rutledge and other fleabag hotels. block by block.

But in the end, the Lewis's stayed hidden. As far as the cops were concerned, the couple was gone. Back in Kansas City, away from the chaos in Chicago and New York, Detective David Barton sat in his living room to watch the evening news. Like the rest of the nation, the 28-year-old detective followed the Tylenol mystery like his life depended on it. Suddenly, the host announced there had been a break in the case. Apparently, cops had unearthed some surveillance footage of the blonde flight attendant Paula Prince

at the checkout line of a Walgreens. And in that footage, she was seen buying the tainted Tylenol. The shocking discovery wasn't Prince herself, but who was behind her? In the black and white image, a man in a white lab coat stood in the white lab coat stood in the background expressionless. He appeared to be watching Prince with an icy stare, perhaps relishing in the knowledge that what she was purchasing would eventually ring the life from her. The image was grainy, but the distant man was without glasses, had short hair, and had a large, bushy beard. It looked like a face that was seared into Barton's memory, James Lewis.

The Martin grabbed the evidence from the Raymond West murder and shared it with Chicago officers. Breathlessly, he offered the task force the game hoist pulley from West's attic, which had a smudged fingerprint on it. It matched the one on the Johnson & Johnson letter. Now, not only did the task force know Jim's real name, they now had proof he was involved with the extortion note. On Thanksgiving Day, James claimed he and Leanne celebrated their anniversary

by going to the Macy's Day parade, surrounded by about 400 cops. The fugitive couple walked hand in hand through the throngs unseen. An FBI behavioral profiler believed that the Tylenol murderer would want to try to stay ahead of the hunt by reading local Chicago papers. But if the killer didn't live in the area, there'd only be one place to do that, the public library. So the task force sent posters to libraries across the country. Finally, on December 13th, about two and a half months after the rash of poisoning swept through Chicago, a library employee spotted the suspect. While Jim Lewis was hunched over in a study carol in the midtown annex of the New York City Public Library, two federal agents entered.

Jim's back was turned, a detective approached, and tapped the fugitive accountant on the shoulder. Jim rose to his feet, knowing his time was up. He calmly put on his glasses and was placed in handcuffs. Leanne surrendered to authorities the next day, on the charge of misusing a social security card for getting a job while living in Chicago, part of the Lewis's history of using false identities. After supposedly unhelpful interrogations, she was released on New Year's Eve. After that, the authorities had virtually nothing to connect Jim Lewis to the Tylenol murders directly.

Still, authorities were able to connect Jim with the extortion letter to J&J, so he was charged with attempted extortion. Almost a year later, his trial began. The defense asserted he didn't actually aim to get money from Johnson & Johnson, and therefore wasn't guilty of extortion. But lead prosecutor and U.S. attorney Dan Webb wasn't going to let him get off that easy. He said, quote, the man who wrote that letter was mean, he was vicious, that man who was insensitive to human suffering, that man who was an evil and depraved opportunist for his own benefit, that man is you, James Lewis, end quote. The jury took just a few hours to find the 37-year-old Jim guilty of attempted extortion,

and he faced a total of 20 years behind bars at sentencing. Still, the question remained. Who was behind the Tylenol murders? By that point in 1983, the task force had dialed back to just 20 agents. As far as they knew, the murderer was still out there, but the case was going cold. But in November, one of the investigators on Jim's case, Jeremy Margolis, got a surprising call from someone who said he'd help solve the case. He had time on his hands and a few instances. insights to share.

The caller was the very man Margolis put behind bars, Jim Lewis. It may seem odd that a criminal would want to help the police solve a crime, but it's not unheard of. Serial killers Edmund Kemper and Ted Bundy both worked with the FBI to hunt down other murderers. Criminal behaviorist Dr. Brianna Fox said a prisoner's motivation is far from alteration. is far from altruistic. They just want to feel important and powerful. Perhaps it was another way for Jim to get the validation he craved. He could pretend to be smarter than the cops, tease them and lead them on, revealing just enough info that he doesn't implicate himself. Margolis also saw this as an opportunity. Not to solve the crime, but to get Jim to confess.

The game of cat and mouse began. During their interview, Jim gave specific theories about how the poisoner may have transferred the cyanide and even drew diagrams. But when Margolis asked him why the mass murderer would commit these crimes, Jim glared. He said, quote, I think he was writing a wrong. This was exactly the same reason why authorities thought Jim sent a letter. Revenge. But even if the people were the same reason. But even if the authorities believed Jim Lewis was the Tylenol murderer, they never found any evidence

tying him to the crimes. In 2010, he was even forced to submit DNA to investigators, but nothing came of it. To this day, the FBI considers the case an open investigation. And as of 2018, Lewis claims he had nothing to do with the killings, writing on his website, quote, The Lewis's were in New York and were not in Chicago during murders. End of discussion. It was therefore impossible for Lewis to have committed the Tylenol murders. All discussions beyond this point are irresponsible, idle speculation. The vengeful accountant served 13 years in prison for credit fraud and extortion.

He was hounded by fellow inmates who teased him as the Tylenol man. and while he worked in the prison bakery, no one would touch the pastries he made. In 1995, at about 50 years old, he was released on parole. He finally returned to the arms of Leanne, the Bonnie to his Clyde. The Lewis's move to Cambridge, Massachusetts, where Jim started a consulting firm. But true to his side hustling self, he didn't let his notoriety go to waste. In 2000, the writer Joy Berman observed a banner advertisement for confections on Lewis's self-maintained website. The slogan, chocolates to die for.

Thanks for tuning in. For more information amongst the many sources we used, we found the articles, A Bitter Pill by Joy Berman and Poison Pill by Michael Solomon, extremely helpful to our research. Next time, we'll determine whether everything we thought we knew about the murderer was wrong. You can find all episodes of conspiracy theories, serial killers, and all other Spotify originals from Parcast for free on Spotify. Until then, remember, the truth isn't always the best story. And the official story isn't always the truth. Have a great week.

Conspiracy theories and serial killers are Spotify originals from Parcast. Executive producers include Max and Ron Cutler. Sound designed by Michael Motion, with production assistance by Ron Shapiro, Nick Johnson, Trent Williamson, and Carly Madden. This episode was written by Ben Carrow, edited by Amber von Schassen and Kate Gallagher,

fact-checked by Kevin Johnson, researched by Bradley Klein, and produced by Bruce Kotowicz. This episode stars Vanessa Richardson and Carter Roy. Aw, pay off your home, travel for life, Drive a Ferrari. In celebration of the world premiere of the Monopoly Big Board Buckslot Machine by Aristocrat Gaming,

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