A new Netflix documentary delves into a case that sent shockwaves across the United States, resulting in at least seven fatalities.

The three-part series, Cold Case: The Tylenol Murders, revisits the chilling events that shattered the nation's faith in the safety of everyday items.

It also triggered nationwide panic and one of the largest criminal investigations in U.S. history.

In 1982, in Chicago, a minimum of seven people lost their lives after consuming cyanide-laced Tylenol capsules. Each episode explores the questions posed at the time and those that still linger today.

One of the suspects, who also features in the docuseries, was James Lewis.

So, who was James Lewis?

Details about James Lewis are scarce, but according to the Netflix documentary, he was abandoned by his birth mother as an infant in Missouri. He was subsequently adopted but faced emotional challenges growing up, reports the .

He studied at the University of Missouri in Kansas City, where he claims to have met his wife. He confides to the documentary team that he can discuss anything with her.

A year after their marriage, the couple welcomed a daughter, Toni, who was born with Down Syndrome. James and his wife both worked as bookkeepers and established their own business named Lewis and Lewis tax service.

Their daughter, born with a heart defect, required surgery at the tender age of two to three months to repair a hole in her atrial wall. Tragically, when she was five years old, the patch came undone and she passed away.

In the 1980s, he spent a brief period living in Chicago with his wife. However, he has always maintained that he was in New York City during the time of the Tylenol poisonings.

The first episode disclosed that he penned an article for the Chicago Tribune newspaper under the pseudonym Robert Richardson. The FBI subsequently issued a wanted appeal for him under this alias.

James Lewis has consistently denied being the individual responsible and even participated in the documentary's comprehensive interviews.

Why was he suspected in the Tylenol case?

Prior to the Tylenol poisonings, Lewis had been accused of other crimes. He was charged with the murder of his friend Ray West in 1978, but the case was ultimately dismissed.

In 1981, police reported finding several victims of credit card and identity theft. All these individuals were linked by one common factor - they had all had their taxes done by James Lewis.

This led to the authorities obtaining warrants to search his house.

During the search, they discovered notebooks detailing a credit card scheme and counterfeit IDs. Draft extortion letters were also found, including ones addressed to companies demanding money.

Additionally, a book about poisoning was unearthed.

However, when police attempted to apprehend Lewis on charges of mail fraud, he was nowhere to be found. An investigator featured in the documentary stated that Lewis' involvement in a murder investigation and identity theft led him to become a focal point in the Tylenol case.

What happened to James Lewis?

Upon realising he was the target of a nationwide manhunt, Lewis informed his wife that he had penned a letter to Tylenol's manufacturers, Johnson and Johnson.

In this letter, he allegedly instructed the company to transfer $1 million into an account to 'stop the killing''. He also wrote a letter to a Chicago newspaper, proclaiming his and his wife's innocence.

This letter ultimately led authorities to locate him in New York City.

During his trial, it was suggested that Lewis intended to divert the attention of the authorities towards his wife's former employer, whose account number he used in the letter as the destination for the funds. Lewis was found guilty of extortion and received a 10-year prison sentence.

Following his release in 1995, he and his wife relocated to Massachusetts. In 2010, Lewis consented to provide his DNA samples to the authorities.

However, no matches were found with the samples retrieved from the contaminated bottles. After participating in the Netflix documentary, Lewis died at the age of 76 in his Cambridge, Massachusetts home in July 2023.

Cold Case: The Tylenol Murders is streaming on Netflix.