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."

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Cruciverbalism

https://www.loc.gov/item/jukebox-72554/

I was intrigued when I read this paragraph in great-uncle Charley's Tuesday, Dec. 9, 1924 letter home:

I suppose Pop worked the big cross-word puzzle in the Sunday Dispatch* and I wonder what luck he had. I worked most of the afternoon on it and succeeded in getting all but two letters in one word. I had H -- C -- A and the word was Hecla, a mountain. Some people think that the puzzles are a waste of time but I learned a bunch of new words Sunday. I got out my dictionary when all other means failed and found synonyms I never heard of before.

One of the strongest memories I have of grandpa Fred is his love of crossword puzzles (and solitaire), so it amused me when my father developed an interest in them.

Like most people I kind of assumed they had always been around, but apparently not. Arthur Wynne is credited with the invention of the American crossword-style puzzle in 1913. By the 1920s, the crossword phenomenon was starting to attract notice.

[There was even a song called “Cross-word Mamma You Puzzle Me (But Papa’s Gonna Figure You Out) recorded on Jan. 22, 1925 -- nine days before Charley's death.]

Though The New York Times ridiculed crossword puzzles in the 1920s, calling them in an editorial “a primitive sort of mental exercise” and a waste of time, the newspaper began to run one in 1942 to offer readers relief from war news. Today, its crossword puzzles are syndicated to more than 300 other newspapers and journals.

*I would love to find a copy of the Dec. 7, 1924 edition of the Columbus Dispatch!

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