Still looking for clews

Thoughts of Great-Uncle Charley always crowd my head the last week of January. What would he have been like? What kind of man would he have been? Would he have been kind to his future great-niece?

Would I have even existed?!

His remaining letters shown his final week was fairly humdrum, other than a persistent cold and that darned toothache.

A CNN story in September rekindled my interest in the Tylenol Murders, which I wrote about in The ripple effect. I reached out to the husband of one of the surviving family members and he passed my request to talk on to his wife, Kasia Janus. She wrote back to me in November but I have heard nothing since then so maybe she changed her mind or decided it was too painful.

However, I saw a CBS story today that reminded me so I wrote to Ms. Janus again. This new story brought up touch DNA and how a survivor had been swabbed so her DNA could be compared to DNA found on her bottle 40 years later.

I admit I got shivers. If only there was surviving evidence from Uncle Charley's or David Puskin's murders, or from the other five men that were poisoned but survived, that we could use 98 years later. I know that our families wouldn't get justice after all these years, but could we get closure?

I think so. My father, the oldest surviving Huls at this time,  might. I certainly would and I think my brother would, too. Maybe even my cousins.

But as an amateur genealogist, this new field of genetic genealogy fascinates me no end.

Criminals beware! The geeks are coming for you!

-30-

The ripple effect

I know I haven't posted in an extremely long time but I truly haven't found anything new to share until today. While scrolling through my multiple news feeds this morning I found an article on CNN about Kasia Janus and her father's murder by cyanide in Chicago 40 years ago.

Like many, I knew the outline -- seven deaths in a 24-hour period when someone managed to slip contaminated capsules into bottles at Chicago area pharmacies. Believe me, it wouldn't have been hard 40 years ago. Packaging was nowhere near as safe as it is now, thanks to the Federal Anti-Tampering Act of 1982.

But I don't think I knew the specifics, especially that 4-year-old Janus also lost her uncle and aunt within that 24-hour period. That blew my mind. I know how my family has struggled over the years with Uncle Charley's murder, but to lose three members? It beggars belief.

What drove me to tears was the description of 4-year-old Janus whispering in her father's ear, "Tata, it's me. I know you're playing a game. Just wake up."

I couldn't help but think of my own frantic grandfather as he watched his beloved older brother die while in the violent throes of strychnine poisoning.

Did he beg Charley not to die? Did he call him by childhood nicknames in the forlorn hope that something, anything, would stop the nightmare?

To read that her uncle and aunt catastrophically took Tylenol for their headaches after they came over to comfort Janus, her mother, and her brother made me think of Grandpa and how he nearly took a capsule himself which later tested 100 percent positive for strychnine.

They died. Grandpa only lived because the doctor called him back into the bedroom for Charley's final death throes.

I have reached out to Janus, but doubt I'll hear back. In the meantime, prayers are ascending for those who are victims of violent crimes. 

Time, most certainly, does not heal all wounds.

-30-

The Chicago Tylenol Seven

The big topic of conversation at our family Thanksgiving dinner on Nov. 25, 1982 was about the recent Chicago Tylenol murders. It was probably one of the few times grandpa Fred opened up about Charley's poisoning.

crimemuseum.org

The Chicago Tylenol Murders were a series of seven poisoning deaths resulting from drug tampering in the Chicago area in September and October 1982. The victims had all taken Tylenol acetaminophen capsules that had been laced with potassium cyanide.

No one was ever charged or convicted of the poisonings. James William Lewis of New York City was convicted of extortion for sending a letter that demanded $1 million to stop the poisonings, but no evidence tying him to the poisonings was ever found.

Can you see why that was the talk of our family dinner? Things hadn't changed much in 57 years.

The latest mass poisonings finally led to reforms in over-the-counter substance packaging. Johnson & Johnson was widely praised for recalling an estimated 31 million bottles to reduce deaths and warning the public of poisoning risks.

Thankfully, the Federal Anti-Tampering Act of 1982 was quickly passed, making it a federal offense to "maliciously cause or attempt to cause injury or death to any person, or injury to any business's reputation, by adulterating a food, drug, cosmetic or other products."

-30-