VIDEO: The Chicago Tylenol Murders. No One Was Safe. No One Knows WHO Did It!

Among countless mysteries and crimes that haven’t been solved one that still haunts us to this day and hasn’t found any sort of answer is that of the Tylenol murders of 1982. it’s scary to know that so many people can die and no one is able to find out who did this and why. It makes us think that it could happen again and it could be a lot worse.

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We can’t know if the killer is going to do it again or if he/she is done killing. The only thing we can do is be extra careful and hope we are safe.

According to patch.com, it’s a given today that many grocery store items — medicine, vitamins, orange juice — come with a safety seal. “Do not purchase product if safety seal is not present” is something we’ve become accustomed to reading on our products. You have the Tylenol scare to thank for that.

Thirty-four years ago, however, that was not the case. Closed items at stores just came with a top, and maybe a cotton swab if it was medicine. There were no elaborate seals to prevent anyone from tampering with the product. As recently as 1982, it was deemed unnecessary. People just didn’t do that.

But a three-day scare that centered on Tylenol, the No. 1 nonprescription painkiller in the country, changed the lives of Americans forever.

Seven people died over a three-day span from Sept. 29-Oct. 1, 1982, all collapsing suddenly after ingesting an Extra-Strength Tylenol pill. One of several that were found during an investigation to have been laced with a beyond fatal amount of potassium cyanide.

Mary Kellerman, a 12-year-old girl from Schaumburg, was the first to die. She collapsed in her bathroom at 6:30 a.m. on Sept. 29 after taking Tylenol to ease the pain from an early morning sickness.

Adam Janus, a 27-year-old postal worker from Arlington Heights, came home early that same day at noon, took two Tylenol and collapsed. His brother Stanley and sister-in-law Theresa both died later that day after taking Tylenol from the same bottle while mourning Adam’s death.

Mary “Lynn” Reiner was at home in Winfield just a week after giving birth to her fourth child when she ingested the poisoned Tylenol.

Mary McFarland, 31, of Elmhurst was working at an Illinois Bell store in Lombard. Paula Prince, a flight attendant for United Airlines, was found dead in her Chicago apartment two days after purchasing Tylenol at a Walgreens nearby.

A multi-agency investigation found the tampered pills to have been sold on shelves at a variety of stores in Chicagoland.

They were sold at Jewel Foods, 122 N. Vail in Arlington Heights; Jewel Foods, 948 Grove Mall, Elk Grove Village; Osco Drug Store, Woodfield Mall in Schaumburg where two laced bottles were found; Walgreen Drug Store, 1601 N. Wells, Chicago and Frank’s Finer Foods in Winfield.

A cyanide-laced Tylenol bottle was also found on the shelf of a Dominick’s in Chicago near the Walgreens where McFarland bought her tampered bottle, but a nationwide recall of all Tylenol products was made before that one could be sold.