Ready for a real-life whodunit that rivals any Hollywood thriller? Well, buckle in and let's revisit a true crime incident as bone-chilling as it is bizarre – The Tylenol Murders.

"Can you imagine me tampering with the seal and leaving my fingerprints all over?" quips James Lewis, the prime suspect in this notorious crime, during a sardonic exchange in Netflix's true crime series, "Cold Case: The Tylenol Murders." This often smirk adorned, enigmatic Lewis was the last major interviewee before he was claimed by death in July 2023.

The infamous Tylenol murders go back to 1982. For those of us who recall this horrifying incident, especially if we were residing in and around Chicago, a sense of dread creeps in at the sight of shrink bands on beverage bottles, seals on personal care products, or plastic cap seals on over-the-counter meds, particularly Tylenol. Believe it or not, it was the spine-tingling murder of seven unsuspecting folks who swallowed cyanide-laced Tylenol capsules that led to the widespread use of tamper-resistant packaging.

Netflix's series is an excellent follow-up to an earlier documentary titled "Painkiller: The Tylenol Murders" by Paramount+ in 2023. Both series compellingly tell the tale of this unsettling crime, with interviews with investigators, reporters, friends of the victims, and a blend of skillfully crafted graphics and archival news footage. For true-crime buffs who already know the story, these series won't reveal any groundbreaking revelations. However, they do highlight the enduring controversy around whether Lewis, who spent 12 years behind bars for sending an extortion note to Johnson & Johnson, was indeed the culprit.

Sure, there have been a number of documentaries and a compelling podcast by Chicago Tribune reporters Christy Gutowski and Stacy St. Clair called "Unsealed: The Tylenol Murders." What surprises us though is the absence of any extravagant, dramatically stimulating drama or streaming series akin to the likes of "Zodiac," or “Mindhunter". Given the suspense and intrigue enveloped in this crime story, an edge-of-the-seat drama seems overdue!

The storyline is filled with unexpected twists, hair-raising coincidences, and gut-wrenching moments. Can you imagine the horror experienced by Stanley and Teresa Janus, who tragically succumbed to cyanide-poisoned Tylenol at a memorial gathering for Stanley's brother? Or Chicago's Mayor, Jane Byrne, making the landmark decision to ban citywide sales of all Tylenol products late at midnight? Or how about James Lewis' chilling message to Johnson & Johnson: "As you can see, it's easy to place cyanide into capsules sitting on store shelves"?

And who could forget about Roger Arnold, the wrongly accused suspect driven to a tragic act of violence due to a case of mistaken identity? Or the eerie incident of a woman who suffered cyanide poisoning, four years after the Chicago Tylenol murders, while Lewis was safely locked in prison?

There continues to be a frightful uncertainty about who was behind this heinous act. FBI Special Agent Grey Steed speaks for many when he suggests, "James Lewis probably not only wrote the extortion letter but planted the cyanide leading to seven deaths," while former Chicago Police Supt. Richard Brzeczek counters, "James Lewis is a jerk, but not the Tylenol killer."

More than four decades on, we still are no closer to catching the phantom perpetrator behind the Tylenol murders. Perhaps we may see more documentaries or even a dramatic re-enactment of these events. But one thing is for sure, the chilling mystery of the Tylenol murders lingers on, reminding us how ordinary objects can become tools of terror and forever altering the way we trust everyday items.