Tylenol Murder Suspect James Lewis, Eyed Since the 1982 Killings, Says Investigators 'Botched' Case

James Lewis calls the investigation into the Tylenol killings "botched."

ByABC News
January 8, 2010, 12:02 PM

Feb. 1, 2010 — -- The man who for 28 years has been the sole suspect in the 1982 Tylenol killings posted a diatribe on his personal Web site this weekend accusing prosecutors of "botching" the investigation.

"Calling anyone a murder suspect for 28 days, 28 weeks, maybe even 28 months is understandable," wrote James Lewis on Cyberlewis.com, a posting first reported on by ABC News' Chicago affiliate WLS-TV. "But 28 years is absolutely insane and unconscionable."

"When the Tylenol Investigator call a man, any man, the Tylenol Murder Suspect for 28 years, you know Tylenol Investigators are lying to you," he wrote. "They only want to get your mind off the fact that the Tylenol Investigators botched their investigation."

No one has ever been charged in the Chicago-area Tylenol poisonings that left seven people dead, but Lewis, 62, has always remained under suspicion.

After the murders, Lewis served 12 years in prison for writing an extortion letter to Johnson & Johnson, the makers of Tylenol, saying that if they paid $1 million they could "stop the killing."

Lewis admitted to police that he wrote the extortion letter, but has always denied having doctored the Tylenol capsules with cyanide.

Following his release in 1995 he moved from Illinois to Massachusetts. In February 2009 his Cambridge, Mass., home was raided by the FBI. Agents were seen leaving with boxes of evidence and an Apple computer.

Last month, Lewis and his wife were ordered by the Middlesex Superior Court in Massachusetts to comply with a subpoena from a DuPage County, Ill., grand jury, and submit DNA and fingerprint samples, according to investigators. It is investigators hope that new scientific technology available to analyze a smudge on one of the original Tylenol bottles might establish a link between Lewis and the crimes.

Now Lewis is fighting back, calling for the public to "bang on the doors of investigators in the FBI, in Chicago, in Cook County and in DuPage County" and demand that they stop "lying."

Representatives from the DuPage prosecutor's office did not respond to messages left by ABCNews.com for a comment regarding Lewis' claims. A spokesperson from the Cook County Prosecutor's office had "no comment" and nor did the FBI headquarters in Chicago, which is handling the case.