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Always a Suspect Never Convicted - What Will It Take
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by harringtola | February 6, 2009 at 09:31 pm
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James Lewis, resident of Cambridge Massachusetts, has been a suspect in three gruesome crimes but has never been prosecuted in any of them basically because of technicalities. The most recent is the rape of a woman whom he was teaching Web Design.
Despite languishing in jail for three years on charges he kidnapped, drugged and raped the woman, James Lewis, 62, was never prosecuted for the alleged July 26, 2004, assault because the 39-year-old victim refused to testify at his trial.
It is said that he mentally as well as physically tortured the women for hours.
threatened a woman he was accused of raping that “he was going to wrap her up in a plastic bag, take her to the forest and let the animals eat her,” according to court records.
According to Middlesex County officials the womans horrific ordeal lasted approximately 24 hours.
She said he alternately gagged her and force-fed her liquids, records state.
State police found traces of ethanol, a common alcohol, and acetone, an ingredient of paint thinner, in her urine, court records state.
Lewis was suspected in the case that changed the way over the counter medicine is packaged and produced, the case of the contaminated Tylenol capsules, but there was not enough evidence to charge him with the actual Tylenol contamination and resulting deaths. He was living with his wife in New York at this time. However, he did serve time for offenses related to this case.
Lewis served more than 12 years for extortion after demanding Tylenol’s makers, Johnson & Johnson, pay him $1 million to “stop the killing,” but sources stressed yesterday that he is not under arrest or in custody.
Just this week the ongoing Tylenol murder case investigation again led to Lewis.
Acting on recent tips in the 1982 cyanide-laced Tylenol murders of seven Chicagoans, including a 12-year-old girl and a woman recovering from the birth of her fourth child, the FBI spent most of Wednesday scouring Lewis’ $346,000 Gore Street condominium, eventually emerging with a desktop computer and boxes.
Additionally, as far as as 1978 Lewis was suspected of the murder and mutilation of the body of a man in his apartment.
Lewis, a former accountant, was previously charged with the 1978 murder and dismemberment of a client, Raymond West, 72, of Kansas City, whose semi-mummified remains were found in plastic bags in West’s attic. Lewis was let go after a judge ruled Kansas City police conducted an illegal search of his home.
With all of this, Lewis has only spent 15 years behind bars, for incidentals, because either there was not enough evidence, the witness was too traumatized to testify and/or the police "violated his civil rights" in the search leading to the body in his attic.
There is little doubt that he is guilty of murder, rape and extortion but he has only been prosecuted for one of those offenses. Of course, I agree, that the assumptions is one of innocence until proved guilty beyond reasonable doubt. I believe this man needs his day in court for each one if for no other reason but to clear his name.
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Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (2)
at 16:10 on February 7th, 2009
Unbelievable.
at 18:04 on February 7th, 2009
I agree Rene.
Sometimes it appears that there is no justice for some but I do believe in the afterlife and the justice that brings so I am assuming he will be held accountable at that point.