The Tylenol Killer Terrorized America with Poisoned Pills in 1982. He Was ‘Seeking Impact,’ Not Fame, New Doc Says (Exclusive)

The new Unsolved Mysteries documentary ‘Unmasking the Tylenol Killer,’ on the Roku Channel, follows a detective’s quest to uncover the truth

NEED TO KNOW

  • Starting in September 1982, tainted extra-strength Tylenol capsules left seven people in the Chicago area dead of cyanide poisoning
  • Police zeroed in on a suspect, James Lewis, but he was never charged in connection to the deaths for lack of evidence
  • In 2019, a Boise detective set out to identify a man who died by suicide inside a church in 1982. His seven-year investigation may have uncovered the identity of the Tylenol killer.

In 1990, the long-running documentary series Unsolved Mysteries aired an episode about an unidentified man who turned up dead in December 1982 under a pew in a Boise, Idaho, church.

Watching the show on his family’s TV set with its “rabbit ears antenna” was then-8-year-old Tim Cooper from West Virginia. Many episodes he watched centered around the paranormal and bone-chilling crimes like serial killings, but this one left him feeling sad. “A man killed himself in a church and I guess that was just the part that I remembered,” Cooper tells PEOPLE…

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