
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, October 13, 1995                   TAG: 9510130082
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune
DATELINE: CHICAGO                                LENGTH: Short

TYLENOL EXTORTIONIST LEAVES PRISON TODAY

James William Lewis, whose name became synonymous with product tampering in connection with seven Chicago-area poisoning deaths caused by cyanide-laced Tylenol capsules, is leaving prison after 13 years for a related crime he says he didn't commit.

He goes free today - ironically, a Friday the 13th for the man who many suspect was the poisoner who in effect canceled Halloween nationwide in 1982 and chilled it for years afterward.

In federal prison in El Reno, Okla., Lewis spent much of his time in his hobby as a landscape painter. His release is mandatory, a prison spokesman said.

A former accountant, Lewis is the only person linked by authorities to the murders in September and October of 1982 in Cook and DuPage counties, Ill. That crime, in which the victims died after taking Extra Strength Tylenol, inspired federal regulations that require protective seals on nonprescription drugs.

The cyanide killings were never solved, but Lewis, now 49, was convicted of trying to extort $1 million from the manufacturer of Tylenol in the aftermath of the killings. He was arrested after he sent a letter to Johnson & Johnson, the parent of Tylenol manufacturer, McNeal Laboratories, demanding the money ``to stop the killing.''

The Tylenol recall was one of the nation's most expensive. Johnson & Johnson destroyed 31 million capsules at a cost of more than $100 million.

by CNB