How the Chicago Tribune reported on the unsolved 1982 Tylenol murders, from interviewing 150 people to reviewing tens of thousands of pages of records.
Reporters also contacted relatives of each of the seven victims, always respecting their wishes if they declined to relive the past. Despite the passage of time, the pain still lingers for family members, and many said they have all but given up hope that the killer will ever be known and held responsible.Read the full story here
The Tribune twice traveled to the Boston area to try to interview the FBI’s main suspect, who has not spoken to reporters in more than a decade. Now 76, he told the Tribune he is not the Tylenol killer and offered his own theory about what happened. Photojournalist Stacey Wescott captured his image, allowing the public to see his face for the first time in years.
Wescott and E. Jason Wambsgans also documented other important players in the investigation as well as poignant images of victims’ relatives and friends, including capturing the heartbreak on 71-year-old Joseph Janus’ face as he described losing his two younger brothers and new sister-in-law hours apart on Sept. 29, 1982. Photo editor Marianne Mather dug deep in the Tribune’s archives to unearth decades of images by photographers who chronicled each twist and turn in the four-decade-old mystery.
Besides a multiple-part series, published in serial form online and in print, the Tribune also co-produced the podcast “Unsealed: The Tylenol Murders” with At Will Media and audiochuck.
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