September 29th in History: Chicago Tylenol Murders

I know I'm not the only one who loves a good murder mystery show--CSI, Sherlock, Criminal Minds, Castle, you name it. But there's something even more intriguing about a real life murder mystery...especially one that has gone unsolved for over 30 years. On September 29th, 1982, 12 year old Mary Kellerman died after taking a capsule of Extra-Strength Tylenol. She was the first of seven victims in what came to be known as the Tylenol Murders. After the deaths of the other six people, all in the Chicago area, the common feature of Tylenol was discovered. The capsules which the victims had taken were laced with potassium cyanide. The incident also spurred a number of copycat attacks; the FDA counted over 200 occurrences of product tampering in the month after the Tylenol incident. Despite all the deadly and negative consequences, there is a silver lining: drug and food companies dramatically improved packaging safety, which is why we now have tamper-proof seals on much of our medication and food. To this day, though, the person or persons responsible for the Tylenol Murders has been neither identified nor caught. However, there is an ongoing investigation, which was reopened shortly after the 30th anniversary of the attacks. Who knows...maybe the killer will eventually be caught after all.