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The first was a 12-year-old girl. Her parents said that she was awake in the middle of the night
complaining of a stuffy nose and sore throat. They gave her an extra strength Tylenol and sent her back
to bed. At 7am the next morning, the parents discovered that the girl had collapsed on the bathroom
floor. An ambulance rushed the girl to a nearby hospital, where she was pronounced dead.
That same day, paramedics found the second victim unconscious on his kitchen floor after what they
thought was an apparent heart attack. Sadly, the victims brother and fiance also collapsed later that
night while the family gathered to mourn his passing. Both had taken Tylenol to help them cope with
their loss shortly before collapsing; neither survived.
In the next four days, four other similar deaths were reported, all in the same neighborhood and all with
similar symptoms.
Are these seven deaths related? What is causing these people to die? It is your job to answer these
questions before more deaths are reported.
The only thing in common in all the deaths besides the neighborhood was that they had all taken Tylenol
shortly before the onset of their symptoms.
The medical team was confused- Tylenol could be damaging to kidneys when taken at high levels,
especially when taken along with alcohol, but it not been shown to cause the damage seen in animal
studies.
Cyanide irreversibly binds to cytochrome c oxidase (CcOX) of the electron transport chain and prevents
the transfer of electrons to oxygen, the final electron acceptor.
No more deaths occurred at this time. It was ruled intentional poisoning and evidence turned over to
the police.
As the tampered-with bottles came from different factories, and the seven deaths had all occurred in
the Chicago area, the possibility of sabotage during production was ruled out. Instead, the culprit was
believed to have entered various supermarkets and drug stores over a period of several weeks, grabbed
several bottles of Tylenol capsules from the shelves, removed them from the stores and took them to
another location. Once there, the suspect opened the bottles, took the capsules out, added the cyanide,
then put the now-laced capsules back in the bottles and returned to the stores to place the bottles back
on the shelves. In addition to the five bottles which led to the victims' deaths, three other tampered-
with bottles were discovered.
The true culprit was never found but several copy-cat killers did use this method for cyanide-laced
Tylenol to kill others, one of the most famous being Stella Nickells lacing Tylenol with cyanide she
bought as an algaecide for her fish tank to kill her husband and collect his large life insurance check.
Stella Nickells was convicted in 1988 of murder by tampering and sentenced to 90 years in prison.