Closure needed in Tylenol killings

One can't blame Michelle Rosen for being skeptical.

Her mother was killed more than 26 years ago and the killer has yet to be charged. It's a cold case that got a little more heat last week when a longtime suspect had his Boston-area home searched by FBI agents.

But Rosen, 34, of Winfield, wonders what's changed to make some think James Lewis soon will be charged with the Tylenol killings of 1982. We wonder, too, and we understand Rosen's skepticism. But we also know that many other cases have been solved many, many years after the fact and so we hold out hope that the Tylenol killer - whomever it is - will be brought to justice some day.

"I'm not convinced it's him. ... I'm just totally lost and confused. What's this new evidence they have," asked Rosen, whose mother, Mary Reiner, was killed along with six others in the suburbs and Chicago when they ingested cyanide-laced Tylenol capsules.

To not have the answers to such a horrific crime certainly weighs heavily on the families. It does, too, on the community and the investigators who are trying to solve the pieces of this puzzle.

"It's been so long and you sort of give up hope of anything being done about it," said Bob Tarasewicz, a brother of one of the victims.

We are heartened to know that the case is still active after all these years. The Tylenol murders hit very close to home, with victims in Arlington Heights, Elk Grove Village, Lisle, Winfield and Elmhurst.

The knowledge then that buying a bottle of over-the-counter medication that could be tampered with so easily was scary not only here but across the country and the world.

Since that time, tamper-proof packaging is a way of life. As another brother of a victim said: "You can't open a package of anything without being reminded of this."

And so we praise the authorities for taking seriously any new leads they might have. It's been reported that new tips came in after coverage of the 25th anniversary of the deaths in 2007. We are confident that these same authorities wouldn't raise the hopes of the families without good reason and so we look forward to hearing what new information they have collected.

And we hope they will be able to finally ease the pain for the families of the victims. Nothing will ever change the fact that an 8-year-old girl watched her mother collapse in front of her after taking the pain medication and later died at age 27. But Michelle Rosen knows she needs some closure.

"I hope that if it's not him (the investigation) just doesn't stop," she said. "There are several families waiting for an answer."

The families of Mary Kellerman, Adam, Stanley and Theresa Janus, Mary Reiner, Paula Prince and Mary McFarland have once again been thrust into the spotlight. It's our fervent hope that they will get some peace soon.