A New Lead In The Tylenol Murders and The Tax Twist You Probably Forgot

More than four decades after seven people died from cyanide-laced Tylenol capsules, investigators say they have uncovered a possible new link to one of the country’s most notorious unsolved crimes. The development puts a new name into the mix—and revives an old story with an unexpected tax twist.

The Ada County Sheriff’s Office announced that investigators have identified the man who died by suicide inside a church in Boise, Idaho, in December 1982, as Dr. Mathew Betkouski. He was previously known only as the “Unknown Wanderer.”

Betkouski was found inside Sacred Heart Catholic Church on December 4, 1982, with no identification. He had a large sum of cash and a typed note signed “Wm. L. Toomey.” The cause of death was cyanide poisoning.

The case attracted national attention—including a 1990 segment on Unsolved Mysteries—but thousands of tips failed to identify him. In 2019, Ada County Sheriff’s Office Cold Case Detective Tim Cooper reopened the investigation. The break came from an engraved key found among the dead man’s belongings. Investigators traced the key to a residential street in Jacksonville, Florida, where they learned that a property owner had disappeared in 1982. Photo comparisons and familial DNA eventually gave the Unknown Wanderer a name: Mathew Betkouski. But identifying him created another mystery.

A Possible Tylenol Connection

As Cooper delved into Betkouski’s life, he uncovered details that seemed striking in light of a notorious crime committed just months before Betkouski’s death: the Tylenol cyanide murders.

In September 1982, seven people in the Chicago area died after taking Extra-Strength Tylenol capsules laced with cyanide. The murders triggered nationwide panic, a massive recall, and sweeping changes in how over-the-counter medications are packaged and sold.

According to the Ada County Sheriff’s Office, Betkouski had worked in two drugstores as an undergraduate, giving him familiarity with pharmacy operations. Investigators interviewed people who described him as volatile and fascinated by explosives. More significantly, former colleagues recalled Betkouski discussing the idea of committing a “perfect crime” and describing cyanide as a means to kill without detection.

That doesn’t make Betkouski the Tylenol killer. Ada County authorities are calling what they’ve found a “possible connection,” and the Chicago Police Department’s investigation remains open. There are also important unanswered questions, including whether Betkouski was anywhere near Chicago when the poisonings occurred. Cooper says he is especially interested in learning more about Betkouski’s movements from October 15 to December 4, 1982.

The Man Investigators Watched For Decades

The development is especially notable because, for decades, another name dominated discussion of the Tylenol murders: James W. Lewis.

Lewis was never charged with the killings and repeatedly denied responsibility. But just days after the seven deaths, he sent a letter to Tylenol’s parent company, Johnson & Johnson, demanding that $1 million be deposited in an account at the Continental Illinois Bank and Trust Co., “if you want to stop the killing.” After a nationwide manhunt, FBI agents arrested him at the New York Public Library on December 13, 1982. Lewis was unarmed and immediately identified himself. He was charged and eventually convicted of attempted extortion, receiving a 10-year prison sentence.

Lewis had not been in New York City long. Less than a year before the seven Tylenol murders, he and his wife, LeAnn, moved to Chicago. According to police, they arrived in a beat-up station wagon and began calling themselves Robert and Nancy Richardson.

While in Chicago, Lewis worked at Chicago Tax Service preparing tax returns. It wasn’t his first stint in tax preparation. Before his arrest, Lewis ran a tax preparation business with his wife in Kansas City.

The reason for the fake names? James Lewis was wanted on fraud charges. While in Kansas City, his tax clients fell victim to a fraud scheme. Lewis used client information to apply for credit cards, using fake addresses along rural routes and installing mailboxes to receive the cards. He was eventually convicted of six counts of mail fraud.

It wasn’t the first time Lewis had been charged with a crime. In 1978, he was charged with the murder of Raymond West, a 72-year-old man from Kansas City who had hired Lewis as an accountant. West disappeared in July 1978, and a $5,000 check believed to have been forged was written to Lewis that day. West’s dismembered body was discovered in the attic of his home several weeks later. The case was ultimately dismissed amid evidentiary and procedural problems, including a finding that police had failed to advise Lewis of his rights when he was arrested.

Taxes, Reagan And Another Threat

It also wasn’t the last time that Lewis was accused of wrongdoing. In October 1982, shortly after the Tylenol deaths, Lewis wrote a threatening letter to then-President Ronald Reagan. His complaint? Taxes.

Prosecutors later disclosed details of the letter, including its tax demands and explicit threats. In the letter, Lewis complained about proposed changes to federal tax law that he believed would increase his income taxes. He also included an unusual tax-policy demand: he wanted “all past due payroll taxes for all employers” abated.

Lewis threatened to use remote-controlled model airplanes to attack the White House if his tax demands weren’t met. The letter also warned of more cyanide killings, a nod to the Tylenol killings. The threat was serious enough that prosecutors later used the letter to keep Lewis in prison.

After his release from prison in 1995, the Lewises moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts, where LeAnn operated—you guessed it—a small bookkeeping and tax business, where Lewis also worked.

So, Who Dunnit?

Law enforcement never stopped looking into Lewis. Investigators interviewed him dozens of times between 2007 and 2009, but he was never charged in the Tylenol murders. In 2010, he wrote a self-published novel titled “Poison!: The Doctor’s Dilemma,” which did little to quell speculation about his possible involvement. Lewis died in 2023 at age 76, still denying responsibility for the killings.

The Tylenol murders remain officially unsolved. And Betkouski’s background doesn’t prove he was responsible for the killings. But after all this time, the case has taken another unexpected turn. And somehow, even this decades-old murder mystery has a tax connection.