 After the 1982 Tylenol murders, FDA regulations went into effect which made it a federal - rather than just a state or local - crime to tamper with consumer products. Local and state authorities are not, however, prevented from also filing charges in such cases. Under this law, Nickell's crime was prosecutable as a federal product tampering case as well as a state murder case, and she was convicted not of murder, but of product tampering that caused death. The possibility of state charges for the actual murders of Susan Snow and Bruce Nickell continues to exist.
