Halloween is here, and not only is it time for trick-or-treating, but it’s also the time to watch out for needles, and poison – or is it?
Parents have long been warned to check their kids’ Halloween candy due to the seemingly widespread dangers of razor blades or drugs planted inside sweet treats.
However, researchers are insisting that contaminated Halloween candy is nothing more than an urban legend.
‘This is absolutely a legend,’ University of Delaware professor Joel Best told NPR.
The longtime legend of bad people tampering Halloween candy has become an essential part of police warnings made every year to the public about the dangers of treats
Ronald Clark O’Bryan was sentenced to death for the murder of his 8-year-old son, Timothy. He was executed by lethal injection in 1984
Timothy ate pixie sticks laced with cyanide by his father on Halloween. He ate the pixie sticks later on that night in his home, and died an hour later after saying the candy ‘didn’t taste right’
‘I have data going back to 1958, and I have yet to find a report of a child that’s been killed or seriously hurt by a contaminated treat picked up in the course of trick-or-treating,’ he claimed.
While Halloween is one of the most dangerous days of the year for kids due to them tripping on costumes or getting hit by cars, Best insists that that most reports of tainted candy are either online hoaxes or cases of children placing needles and other items into the candy themselves for attention.
However, one murder case provides one example of tainted candy that cannot be denied.
Fear of poisoned treats after the murder of Timothy O’Bryan in 1974 and the Tylenol killings in 1982.
Ronald O’Bryan gave pixie sticks to five children on Halloween night – including his 8-year-old son, Timothy O’Bryan.
Little did the kids know that O’Bryan laced the pixie sticks wit cyanide before giving each of them the candy.
Timothy ate his pixie sticks, and after complaining that they ‘didn’t taste right,’ he died that night an hour later.
The other children did not eat the candy, and were unharmed.
O’Bryan had taken a life insurance policy out on Timothy and his other daughter Elizabeth. He was arrested, and sentenced to death after the jury convicted him less than an hour into deliberation.
He was executed by lethal injection on March 31, 1984 for what Best told NPR O’Bryan thought was the perfect crime, having vastly over-estimated how common it was for children to be killed at random by poisoned Halloween candy.
Bad people tampering Halloween candy may be a rare event, but that has not stopped police from issuing urgent warnings due to very real cases of kids ending up in the emergency room after accidentally ingesting drugs that they believed to be candy.
A student at an Alameda elementary school in California ingested cannabis-infused fruit chews at an event, prompting the school district issue a candy warning shortly after.
A child in Mayville, Wisconsin discovered that one of the Tootsie Rolls they received at a trick-or-treating event Monday included a nail inside the candy, according to a local news channel.
Luckily, that child did not eat the candy.
The search continues to identify who is responsible, but WISN 12 News confirmed that there have been ‘no other reports’ of dangerous candy.
One common issue regarding candy is needles – one was recently found in a tootsie roll during a trick or treating event in Wisconsin on October 30
Nassau County executive Bruce Blakeman warned parents to watch out for candy during a press conference on October 30 with NBC News 4.
He said: ‘There’s a danger that the candy that they think is candy could be adulterated,’ he stated.
Blakeman then showed off a Gushers bag, which previously contained candy laced with THC that could get a child sick.