CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) — Thursday marked a grim anniversary: It’s been 40 years since the first death in what became known as the Tylenol murders.
"There’s no motive for money,” said John Drummond, the legendary Channel 2 reporter. “No motive for revenge."
Forty years later, motive is just one of the things about the Tylenol murders that's baffled Drummond, who vividly remembers covering the 1982 Tylenol murders. Seven innocent people in Chicago and the suburbs died after taking capsules that someone laced with cyanide.
“A lot of people were fearful,” he said. “Obviously, they go to the drugstore to get some medication, has somebody been tampering with [it]? Not necessarily Tylenol. It could be anything you wanted, and so, just a massive concern and serious concern and in some way panic, greeted everybody in this area.”
Drummond, who earned the nickname “Bulldog” because of the tenacity with which he’d pursue a story, worked a beat that included infamous mobsters like Chicago Outfit boss Tony Accardo and killers like John Wayne Gacy.
The Tylenol murderer, though, was a level of evil he hadn’t see before.
“It was targeting the world: it could be young, old, rich or poor,” Drummond said. “It didn’t make any difference.”
It was an evil, too, that was never brought to justice.
Drummond said that fear of not knowing who might be next haunted not only him, but investigators, other reporters — practically everyone.
“The story is still the same as it was in many ways 40 years ago: Who did this crime?” Drummond said. “They’ve given this name of this one individual, but they’re no closer now to my knowledge to clearing it as they were 40 years ago.”
The Tylenol murders is the focus of the latest episode of the WBBM podcast, "Courier Pigeon." Find it on the Audacy app or wherever you get your podcasts.
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