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Here’s a look back at what happened in the Chicago area on Oct. 13, according to the Tribune’s archives.

Is an important event missing from this date? Email us.

Flashback: Oct. 13, 1982

Investigators confirmed during a press conference on Oct. 14, 1982, Robert Richardson (an alias used by James W. Lewis) had been identified as the author of a $1 million extortion letter delivered to Johnson & Johnson. There wasn't enough evidence, however, to connect Lewis and his wife LeeAnn to the deaths of seven people in the Chicago area who ingested cyanide-laced Extra-Strength Tylenol capsules. (baiduhai)
Investigators confirmed during a news conference on Oct. 14, 1982, that Robert Richardson (an alias used by James W. Lewis) had been identified as the author of a $1 million extortion letter delivered to Johnson & Johnson. There wasn't enough evidence, however, to connect Lewis and his wife, LeeAnn, to the deaths of seven people in the Chicago area who ingested cyanide-laced Extra-Strength Tylenol capsules. (baiduhai)

A task force, which had been assembled to look into why seven people in the Chicago area died after taking Tylenol capsules filled with potassium cyanide, identified the author of an extortion letter that had been sent to Johnson & Johnson. It was Robert Richardson (an alias for James W. Lewis), who was wanted on a federal arrest warrant alleging attempted extortion.

At a news conference held the following day, investigators talked about the allegations of violence and fraud in Lewis’ past and revealed Richardson’s true identity.

“It is an important lead,” Illinois Attorney General Ty Fahner told reporters. “Yes, this has great significance.”

Lewis, the sole suspect in the Tylenol murders, died in 2023.

He spent about 13 years in federal prison for attempted extortion related to the Johnson & Johnson letter and for committing mail fraud in a Kansas City credit card scam in 1981. He was released from prison in October 1995 and then joined his wife in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he lived the rest of his life.

The Tylenol murders: Timeline of key events before and after the 1982 poisonings

Weather records (from the National Weather Service, Chicago)

  • High temperature: 88 degrees (1975)
  • Low temperature: 25 degrees (1988)
  • Precipitation: 3.79 inches (2001)
  • Snowfall: Trace (1986)

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1927: Arlington Park opened for its first season of business — though still under construction. More than 20,000 fans braved the cold weather to celebrate the event in high style. Jockey Joe Bollero guided horse Luxembourg to victory in the racetrack’s first-ever race. The facility closed in 2021, and the site was bought by the Chicago Bears in 2023.

In his Oakbrook Terrace office on Oct. 12, 2023, David Meilahn holds a 1983 photo of himself making the first commercial cellphone call alongside his wife, Gail Meilahn, and technician Jeff Benuzzi. (Stacey Wescott/baiduhai)
David Meilahn holds a 1983 photo of himself making the first commercial cellphone call alongside his wife, Gail Meilahn, and technician Jeff Benuzzi, Oct. 12, 2023. (Stacey Wescott/baiduhai)

1983: David Meilahn, a suburban Chicago insurance agent, made the first commercial cellular call in the United States in a parking lot at Soldier Field.

Dantrell Davis, 7, was shot by a sniper on Oct. 13, 1992, as the boy walked from his Cabrini-Green high rise to Jenner School. Davis was the third child from the school killed by guns that year. (baiduhai)
Dantrell Davis, 7, was shot by a sniper on Oct. 13, 1992, as the boy walked from his Cabrini-Green high-rise to Jenner School. Davis was the third child from the school killed by guns that year. (baiduhai)

1992: Shortly after the 9 a.m. school bell, 7-year-old Dantrell Davis was shot in the head by a sniper while walking with his mother from his Cabrini-Green high-rise to the Jenner Academy of the Arts. Half an hour later, he was pronounced dead at Children’s Memorial Hospital.

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Later that day, police arrested reputed street gang leader Anthony Garrett in connection with Dantrell’s murder.

The 14th floor window at the Ida B. Wells complex on Feb. 28, 1996, in Chicago. This is the window where two boys dangled and dropped Eric Morse, 5, on Oct. 13, 1994, when he refused to steal candy for them. (Bill Hogan/baiduhai)
The 14th-floor window at the Ida B. Wells complex on Feb. 28, 1996, in Chicago. This is the window where two boys dangled and dropped Eric Morse, 5, on Oct. 13, 1994, when he refused to steal candy for them. (Bill Hogan/baiduhai)

1994: Five-year-old Eric Morse was dropped from the 14th floor of the Ida B. Wells public housing complex by Jesse Rankins, 10, and Tykeece Johnson, 11, for refusing to steal candy from a store. The murder plot was hatched by the boys as they walked home from school earlier that day, the Tribune reported at the time.

Morse’s death — he was the 53rd child under the age of 14 to be killed in Chicago that year — came to be a symbol of all that had gone wrong in public housing in Chicago.

Illinois reacted swiftly to the boys’ arrest for Morse’s murder, enacting a new law that lowered the age to 10 from 13 at which offenders could be sentenced to prison.

John A. Pople, center, celebrates his 1998 Nobel Prize in chemistry with Lawrence B. Dumans, provost for Northwestern University, left, and Eric J. Sundquist on Oct. 14, 1998. (Charles Cherney/baiduhai)
John A. Pople, center, celebrates his 1998 Nobel Prize in chemistry with Lawrence B. Dumans, left, provost for Northwestern University, and Eric J. Sundquist on Oct. 14, 1998. (Charles Cherney/baiduhai)

1998: Northwestern University chemistry professor John Pople won the Nobel Prize in chemistry. He developed the GAUSSIAN computer program in 1970, and shared the prize with Walter Kohn for using mathematics to unscramble the complexities of how atoms glom onto one another to form molecules.

In this Oct. 14, 2015, file photo, a baseball that was hit for a home run by Chicago Cubs' Kyle Schwarber in the seventh inning in Game 4 of the NLDS sits encased atop the right field video board at Wrigley Field in Chicago. (Chris Sweda/baiduhai)
A baseball that was hit for a home run by Chicago Cubs' Kyle Schwarber in the seventh inning in Game 4 of the NLDS sits encased atop the right field video board at Wrigley Field on Oct. 14, 2015. (Chris Sweda/baiduhai)

2015: Kyle Schwarber hit a home run — with an exit velocity of 112.5 mph and distance of 419 feet — atop Wrigley Field’s right field video board in the Chicago Cubs’ win over the St. Louis Cardinals in Game 4 of the National League Division Series to advance to the National League Championship Series. The ball was encased in a clear box and remained in that position for the rest of the season.

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