I'm Rebecca Levoy, and this is You Can't Make This Up.

You Can't Make This Up is the podcast where we uncover the true stories behind your favorite Netflix documentaries and films.

On today's episode, we take a closer look at the Netflix documentary series, Cold Case,

the Tylenol murders.

It was just such a terrible crime to take a product that helps someone and turn it into a weapon.

Today we're talking to executive producer, Yo Tom Gundleman, and director Ari Pines.

In 1982, Chicago officials scrambled

to figure out why young, healthy people

were mysteriously dying in their homes.

They pieced together they'd all taken capsules

of extra strength Tylenol laced with cyanide.

While Johnson and Johnson pulled millions of bottles off the shelves, police looked for the suspect

who tampered with the medicine.

Though a man claimed responsibility in an extortion letter, investigators could never prove

James Lewis planted the poison, and the case remains unsolved to this day.

The Netflix documentary series, Cold Case, the Tylenol murders, dives into the mystery

behind the deadly cyanide tainting, one whose effects are seen on thousands of products

today.

It explores several theories about how and why the capsules were tampered with, and it features

an interview with the man authorities say is their main suspect in the poisoning of seven people.

I said, there are some police here.

You know what they're here for, don't you?

...