As Halloween approaches, local media outlets across the country will warn parents to check their kids’ Halloween candy for potential dangers. In recent years, federal and state authorities issued warnings about candy-shaped rainbow fentanyl. Another “danger” has been people swapping out regular candy for THC-laced gummies that mimic famous candy brands.
The danger of some maniac child-hater giving out poisoned candy, however, is a myth. There simply is no evidence that anything like this occurs at Halloween.
Debunking the THC-laced gummies is the easy part. These small bags of gummies cost $15 and up each, so it is unlikely anyone would give them out to be cruel. Joel Best, a sociology professor at the University of Delaware who has studied the tainted Halloween candy myth since 1983, told The New York Times in 2021 that the THC-laced gummies claim “spreads primarily among people who have no idea what this stuff costs.”
There are two decades-old examples of dangerous candy. In 1959, California dentist Dr. William Shyne handed out candy-coated laxative pills to children trick-or-treating. Thirty children were sickened by the laxative-laced candy, with some 450 pills handed out. Shyne was charged with outrage of public decency and unlawful dispensing of drugs.
Following this, some 80 reports of sharp objects being inserted into Halloween candy emerged, but the vast majority turned out to be hoaxes, including a claim by two Pennsylvania teenagers in 2015 that they had found needles in their Halloween candy. They quickly recanted their claims and faced no charges, Philadelphia magazine reported at the time.
“Law enforcement is always in a difficult situation in these potential hoax cases, which seem to occur every year,” Larry Hogan, who was the district attorney of Chester County at the time, said in a statement. “The public has to be notified immediately as a matter of safety. However, as anybody who has raised kids knows, it sometimes takes some work and time to get the full truth behind an initial story. In this case, law enforcement and the media did a sound job of balancing the need for safety with pursuing the ultimate truth. At this point, we are simply glad that we can assure the parents and children of Chester County that Halloween remains a safe and fun event.”
The first teenager, an 11-year-old, put needles from her mom’s sewing kit into her candy after an adult showed her a picture of spiked candy while telling her to be safe. The other teen, a 12-year-old, saw a news report of the first hoax and decided to create his own. That same year, a 37-year-old man in New Jersey was arrested after posting a photo on social media claiming to have found needles in Halloween candy. The man, Robert Ledrew, placed the needles in the candy himself after seeing a news report about the two teens’ claims.
“I can’t find any evidence of any child being killed or seriously hurt by a contaminated treat picked up in the course of trick-or-treating,” Best, the University of Delaware sociology professor, told the Times.
A 5-year-old boy died in 1970 after eating heroin, which the police originally said had been in his Halloween candy. Allegedly, heroin had been sprinkled on the candy. In reality, the heroin had been found in his uncle’s home, the Times reported at the time. A medical examination found that the amount of heroin found in the boy’s body was way more than a sprinkle, and was the amount typically found in a capsule.
The idea that strangers are putting poisons and sharp objects into candy falls flat when one considers that criminals tend to want to see the destruction they cause. Giving things to random kids in the neighborhood wouldn’t really qualify, and it would be very easy to connect such a crime to a particular house.
There is one confirmed incident of poisoned Halloween candy that led to a death, but there is more to that story than stranger danger. In 1974, 8-year-old Timothy O’Bryan died after eating potassium cyanide-laced Pixy Stix found in his Halloween candy. The boy had been out trick-or-treating with his father, Ronald, and his sister, as well as a neighbor and his two children.
The group came to a house where no one answered the door, so the children ran ahead. Ronald caught up with the group and said he had been given five Pixy Stix by the occupant of the house that hadn’t initially answered. He gave one Pixy Stix to each of the four children in the group, and gave the fifth to a boy he knew from church.
That night, before going to bed, young Timothy asked to eat some of the candy from Halloween. Ronald provided him with another Pixy Stix. When Timothy struggled to get the powdered candy out of the straw, Ronald helped him loosen the powder. Upon consuming it, Timothy said it tasted bitter, so Ronald gave him some Kool-Aid to wash it down.
Timothy then said his stomach hurt and ran to the bathroom to throw up. The young boy started having convulsions. Ronald would later say that he held Timothy while the boy was vomiting and that the child collapsed in his arms. Timothy died on the way to the hospital, less than one hour after he consumed his last Pixy Stix.
None of the other children who had been given a Pixy Stix by Ronald consumed their candy, and their parents were able to retrieve them. Authorities found that the candies had all been opened and the top two inches of powder was replaced with cyanide powder before the straws had been stapled shut.
A pathologist who tested the candy found that Timothy consumed enough cyanide to kill two adults.
Ronald told police that he couldn’t remember which house provided the Pixy Stix. This made police suspicious, since the group had only gone to homes on two streets due to rain. None of the homes on these streets had given out Pixy Stix. After walking the neighborhood with police, Ronald pointed to the house that hadn’t answered and said the man had simply opened the door and given him the candy without fully revealing himself. Ronald said he only saw the man’s arm.
Police investigated the owner of the home and found that he was an air traffic controller who didn’t get home until 11:00 p.m. on Halloween night. More than 200 people were able to confirm he had been at work that night and couldn’t have given out the candy.
Police later learned that Ronald was more than $100,000 in debt at the time (more than $620,000 in 2023 dollars), and had held 21 jobs in the past 10 years. He was about to be fired again, his car was about to be repossessed, he had defaulted on multiple bank loans, and was about to lose his house.
In the months before Timothy died, Ronald had taken out $10,000 insurance policies on each of his children. One month before the death, Ronald took out an additional $20,000 in insurance on each child. The morning after Timothy died, Ronald called to ask about collecting the insurance money.
Ronald had also gone to a chemical supply store to buy cyanide before Halloween, but left when he learned the minimum amount he could buy was 5 pounds.
Ronald was arrested and charged with Timothy’s murder and the attempted murders of the four other children. Timothy’s mother said she had no idea about the insurance policies and was never considered a suspect.
At trial, a chemist testified that Ronald had asked him about cyanide and how much would be fatal in the year before Timothy’s death. A chemical supply salesman also testified that Ronald had asked him how to purchase cyanide. Those who knew Ronald testified that in the months before Timothy died, Ronald had shown an interest in cyanide.
Ronald’s wife testified that Timothy had not chosen to eat a Pixy Stix that night, but that Ronald had forced him to choose the candy.
Ronald was convicted and sentenced to death. He was killed by lethal injection on March 31, 1984. In the decades since, he has been referred to as “The Candy Man” or “The Man Who Killed Halloween.”
Yet he was not a stranger handing out Halloween candy – he was a man in debt who sought to kill his children for the insurance money and gave out the candy to other children to make it look like it had come from a stranger.
Despite numerous warnings about the dangers of Halloween candy, there simply is no evidence that a stranger in the neighborhood is preparing to harm children by going to great lengths to tamper with candy.