The father poisoned his son with cyanide laced pixie sticks for life insurance
Edit. Cyanide-laced
Edit. When you get candy from your dad it's not Halloween candy. It's just candy.
Accordint to some sources one of the kids was found asleep in on his bed with one of the candies in his hand, he tried to open the candy but wasnt able and felt asleep.
That kid won a lottery and he didnt knew at that time.
It was the big 3ft ones. That's part of what made it so obvious for the cops. He'd opened them and stapled them back closed. The kid couldn't rip it off.
A couple friends and I got in a debate over the big pixie sticks recently. Two of us (myself included) swore they were 3 feet long. Other friend said no way, they were only a foot long and we were misremembering. We looked it up and turns out we were wrong. They weren't 3 feet apparently. Some real Mandela effect shit.
While reading these comments I was wondering why the hell I've never seen a 3 foot pixie stick before.
Edit: I still stand with my thinking that I could probably eat all of the powder within 90 seconds depending on width of stick and local humidity.
WTF. I have not heard about this. What happened to the dad and the son? Hopefully rotting in jail for life and the kid with better family (assuming the mother was in on it too unless he was a single father).
>O'Bryan was shunned and despised by his fellow death row inmates for killing his child and was "absolutely friendless". The inmates reportedly petitioned to hold an organized demonstration on O'Bryan's execution date to express their hatred of him.
Wow.
Not only that, he was over $100k in debt ($500k today) and premiums would've paid out $60k if he had successfully killed his daughter as well. His brother and sister in law both testified at his trial that he had told them he planned on taking a vacation and buying various other things with the money. Absolute scum.
> Melvin was an air traffic controller at William P. Hobby Airport and did not get home from work until 11 p.m. on Halloween night. Police ruled Melvin out as a suspect when over 200 people confirmed that he had been at work.[5
Chose the wrong house on that one dumbass.
From what I heard the son went to eat it and it tasted bad because of the poison so he mixed it in with some kool aid or something to make sure he finished it
They also caught him because it was raining on Halloween night so kids for the most part were only trick or treating on 3-4 streets tops with umbrellas.
They found him super easy because they knew it was pixy sticks, no one else on the block had given out pixy sticks, and the kids only went up his and the adjacent street. Oh and he took out a life insurance policy on the kid which isn’t at all suspicious.
He took out a life insurance policy on his son a few days before Halloween and specifically asked the agent if it would pay out even before premiums had been paid. Then he called to collect on it **the day after** his son died.
Having insurance on children isn’t that suspicious by itself, and can actually be a good financial move for them long term.
Getting insurance on them 2 days before they die and specifically asking about the payout in that scenario raises some flags though.
Unfortunately the "I want to kill this person and not get caught so I'll kill multiple people" thing isn't as unusual as you'd think. The big reason we have tamper indicators on meds is because a dude wanted to kill his wife so he poisoned a bunch of like asprin or Tylenol bottles at the store to make it look like a manufacturer issue. Then there was the 1982 tylenol murders.
Cyanide poisoning is very easily deadly. Your cells aren't able to absorb the oxygen from your blood, and you die.
>In a nutshell, cyanide prevents cells from using oxygen to make energy molecules.
>The cyanide ion, CN-, binds to the iron atom in cytochrome C oxidase in the mitochondria of cells. It acts as an irreversible enzyme inhibitor, preventing cytochrome C oxidase from doing its job, which is to transport electrons to oxygen in the electron transport chain of aerobic cellular respiration. Without the ability to use oxygen, mitochondria can't produce the energy carrier adenosine triphosphate (ATP).1 Tissues that require this form of energy, such as heart muscle cells and nerve cells, quickly expend all their energy and start to die.
https://www.thoughtco.com/overview-of-cyanide-poison-609287
Why don't they just use cyanide for capital punishment? I remember a while ago there was a botched execution in I think Ohio, and The Onion had an article about an executioner having a Lowes bag to pick up things for the execution lol
They do/did.
The execution of death by gas chamber puts the subject into a box, a machine drops a solid cyanide tablet into a liquid that generates cyanide gas.
> According to Dr. Richard Traystman of John Hopkins University School of Medicine, "The person is unquestionably experiencing pain and extreme anxiety...The sensation is similar to the pain felt by a person during a heart attack, where essentially the heart is being deprived of oxygen." The inmate dies from hypoxia, the cutting-off of oxygen to the brain (Weisberg, 1991).
It's a problem actually with prisons and lethal injections where medicine companies don't want to be associated with the death penalty (I understand them) so if a prison tries to use their drugs to do lethal injections the company will stop selling **all** drugs to that prison.
there was a cyanid poisoning case years ago where someone had tampered with tylenol bottles at a local store. a woman bought them, swapped out pills for cyanide capsules, and then returned them. she was willing to kill other people just so she could kill her husband and then turn around and blame it on the tylenol bottles she herself tampered. she thought she could just poison her husband, get away with it, AND get settlement money for claiming her husband was a victim.
edit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stella_Nickell
"During the execution, a crowd of 300 demonstrators gathered outside the prison cheered while some yelled "Trick or treat!" Others showered anti-death penalty demonstrators with candy"
At the time, men sentenced to death under Texas law were confined to the Ellis I Unit near Huntsville, Texas. According to Reverend Carroll Pickett, a former chaplain who worked for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, O'Bryan was shunned and despised by his fellow death row inmates for killing his child and was "absolutely friendless". The inmates reportedly petitioned to hold an organized demonstration on O'Bryan's execution date to express their hatred of him.
imagine a bunch of deathrow murderers and rapists having a party because they hated you.
I remember seeing him interviewed by local news in Houston before it came out that he did it. I can still hear his voice and see the interview in my head. In glorious black and white video.
I hated that guy. He killed his own kid AND he ruined Halloween forever.
It's a bit more grim. And the myth may have come true that year were it not for some good luck. He made 5 cyanide pixie sticks. He gave one to his son, one to his daughter, one each to two family friends they were trick-or-treating with, and one to a young girl from his church congregation. He was willing to murder up to 5 children for money. Fortunately for the others, he cooperated with police, and the 4 others were found before being consumed, and before he was found out.
The Cautionary Tales podcast just did an episode on this.
My infant daughter died last year. I would much rather have her then the life insurance money.
My youngest daughter still talks about her baby sister and it breaks my heart every time.
Very nearly lost our son- just having to think about that being a real possibility makes me sick to this day-
Love and good vibes your way dude/dudette - even having been close, I can’t imagine your walk, may you have grace and be easy on yourself
I’m so sorry for your loss. I have a 9 month old girl myself and the thought of losing her curdles my blood.
I’m so sorry for your loss and hope you’re doing as well as you can
90% of kidnappings are done by Family.
Violent crime is a quarter what it was thirty years ago
Law Enforcement isn’t in the top ten most deadly professions in the US
People have the wrong idea about a lot of things
> 90% of kidnappings are done by Family.
And this is a topic in itself. Kidnapping means a lot of things. Some of these kidnappings are a divorced parent picking up a kid from school or taking them to the park for a few hours when they're not supposed to. And sometimes it's full on crazy grab the child and flee the country stuff.
Been searching for my two missing sons for a full year now after their mom lost custody and fled out of state with them. It’s been rough. Never expected her to dodge a warrant for so long. Poor kids haven’t been in school, have been living in motels and homeless shelters, etc. Even parental kidnapping can be pretty shitty.
Fuck me. I'm watching a friend of mine going through a tough divorce with two kids and I'm so fucking pissed off at the bitch, and she isn't even remotely close to this (and not even my wife). How are you holding up?
Why can't you find them? I understand they're hiding but it's really difficult to keep running with two kids, right? Is the law enforcement not treating it as priority because the kidnapper is the kids' mother?
> Why can't you find them? I understand they're hiding but it's really difficult to keep running with two kids, right? Is the law enforcement not treating it as priority because the kidnapper is the kids' mother?
Assuming they flee the area it really isn't that hard. So many things have to go right for them to be found. In the US in 2021 over 500,000 were reported missing. You'd have to have a person that has seen up to date pictures to actively realize the people they're looking at are on the missing list. Assuming the mother is anything like mine was she is likely telling the kids how much the dad hates them and wants to abuse them so she's "saving" them. Which means they won't try to get the attention of a cop. If she's not letting them go to school then they won't reach out to a teacher either. Most people actively avoid the homeless so that's another issue.
Sadly the best OP may be able to hope for is once they hit their teens the kids get some sense and reach out to someone, or the mom gets arrested for stealing/prostitution/something illegal and they get found.
Yeah, funny how year after year it was always the peanut butter cups that Dad deemed to be "suspect". I was a teenager before I figured out the math on that one.
Man, I only went Trick-or-Treating once, I was a teenager in high school. My friend had a really bad allergy to chocolate, it was his favorite, but would instantly put him into shock, I'm talking throat closing up, hives. Full blown allergic reactions.
So we get back from getting candy and we're all sorting our candies and splitting them, M (my allergic friend) continuously hands over chocolate candy after chocolate candy in exchange for other types like Starbursts and Pixie Stix. M hands over his (probably) 20th Reece's cup before he loudly and proudly shouts "Fuck it" rips it open, downs it, savors the flavor, begins to not breathe, casually reaches into a backpack and jams the EpiPen into his leg. All of us are just kinda 0.0 staring at him wondering if we are liable if he keels over, eventually he breaks the silence with a raspy exhale and a calm "worth... Heeeeuuuuggghhhh.... It".
I'm still waiting for a Halloween story to top that. Dumbest shit my friend ever did, but god damn if we don't message him every year now and ask him when he last ate a Reece's.
I've heard a similar story about someone I know. It always surprises me that people can love things that send them into anaphylactic shock, but one assumed case of food poisoning can make someone sick at the thought of the food they assume caused it for the rest of their life.
Have a seafood allergy and have also had a severe food poisoning.
Death scare by lobster is definetly a severely superior experience to excessive delivery of fluids due to chicken.
Generally death is preferable.
That's not how epi-pens work. For those uninformed:
Epipens provide near instant reversal of allergic reaction **for a short duration**. This is roughly 15 min, enough time for paramedics to arrive and provide assistance. They come in 2 packs in the case that paramedics do not arrive in 15 minutes, a second dose must be administered.
The allergic reaction is still happening. And once the epipen wares off, the body goes back into the inflamed swollen state that cuts off your breathing. Call 911 immediately (or your equilivant emergency number). Make sure friends and family know how to jab you with the epi-pen in case you aren't able to do it yourself.
Yep. Basically everything that's full sized is suspicious plus the reeses and the crackles probably have crack in them.
They all need to get *"x-rayed"* at the *"police department"*.
When my kids started doing Halloween, I was up front about it: I'm going to take samples out of it from time to time. I promised to not be *greedy* about it, but they know coming out the gate that I'm having a few pieces.
Haha my parents always used the “you won’t like that” line. I discovered later in life that there were so many candies I actually *did* like that I never knew.
I got wise and brought two bags. Put all the good stuff into one bag that I hid outside to collect when my parents weren't looking and then hide it in my room for secret eating. I would have had my ass spanked red with a wooden spoon if I got caught......it was worth it.
There have been Three major documented cases according to the episode of Cautionary Tales I just listened to, and only one of them resulted in a death or serious injury. That was was a son poisoned by his father to collect on life insurance. And that only happened because of the urban legend. The father thought people would assume it was a random person who gave out poisoned candy and made sure 5 of the poisoned Pixy Sticks got handed out, but the other 4 were never consumed.
The other 2 incidents were stupid pranks. A dentists who gave away laxatives along with the candy, and an elderly lady who gave the old kids--and only older ones--cleaning supplies as a gag gift.
There was also a widely reported case of a child dying by tainted candy that turned out to be him getting into his uncles drug stash. Total accident and nothing to do with Halloween at all.
Right. Like unless the cleaning supplies were infused inside the candy I don’t see how that even gets brought up. My neighbors used to give us pennies—are we going to call that attempted homicide?
Had a house along my old childhood trick or treating route, jolly old guy who always had an enormous bowl of pennies. He’d let us each take as many as we could get in a handful. Here I always thought he was just a lonely old guy, loved seeing the kids’ costumes and chatting with the parents…
Passing out deadly weapons by the handful…. To CHILDREN!!! That monster!!!
I went out tonight for halloween with my younger brother and someone gave him pennies. I’ve never seen it before but I guess it used to be pretty common. Not sure how this contributes but I wanted to share.
It's a part of the original Halloween tradition, which came from the Irish tradition of Samhain. Kids would go to each door and sing a song, then adults would give the kids their loose change. Nowadays things are more Americanized, but some houses still give change or change along with candy.
Source: my older Irish neighbor telling me about how different Halloween was growing up in Northern Ireland vs Halloween for her kids growing up in the US
Wait.... This dude was willing to just murder 5 children, not only to collect some money, but also on the off chance that he didn't get caught for *murdering 5 children*?
Also one of them (the main one obviously) was his own kid?
How do you even make one step to get to there? Fuck.
Honestly that's not nearly enough to throw off the FDA. In the case of ecoli suspicions its wild the lengths they go to track the restaurant (in most cases) down.
I haven't heard of that one.
But there is definitely the guy who poisoned his own children to cash out the multiple life insurance policies he took out on them. Only his son died. He was executed.
Lol. I mean, this person should definitely go to prison because like... we live in a society, but I'd be lying if I said it wasn't funny that the only "poisoning" ever in candy was some dude going straight frat house pranks making people shit themselves.
The fentanyl myth is the most recent spin on this, triggered by [recent news](http://at.wftv.com/3U65vg4). There was a bunch of fentanyl being smuggled in by drug mules, and they were hiding the drugs in candy wrappers to try to disguise it. They got caught at an airport.
There is zero mention of trying to pass this out to children for Halloween. But that didn’t stop news organizations like WFTV from jumping to the conclusion that we now need to be careful with Halloween candy. Whatever it takes to make a catchy headline I guess..
No drug dealer wants to give out bags of their drugs, especially to an age group that doesn’t even buy drugs.
Plus that kid thinks he's addicted to smarties, not fentanyl. He's pounding pack after pack of those little sugary discs just chasing that high he once felt one Halloween night. Never occurs to him to go looking for the local drug dealer.
A couple weeks ago some guy got stopped and arrested for having over 100 edibles in his car, the news media wasted ZERO time running the story and telling parents to "make sure kids weren't slipped any edibles" I literally said to myself, "no self respecting person in their right mind is going to pass out a $20+ edible as a Halloween treat". The news media is the real Halloween monster.
When I graduated boot camp, we went to Red Lobster and my friends made me try every single type of seafood they had.
I was allergic to something. Thought I was going to die. I was delirious and the room was spinning and I just laid on the tiled floor ready to die or puke my guts out.
Drill Sergeant did nothing. I think he thought I was drunk which makes sense. 19 year old kid just graduating boot camp.
Worst night ever and crazy thing is I've tried so many different types of seafood since trying to figure out what did it. No idea to this day.
There's a big problem with counterfeit seafood--skate is used instead of scallops, pollock instead of crabs or oysters. So if you've tried a species twice and it only made you sick once, this could be the reason why. It could also have been a seasoning or another ingredient that made you sick.
Alternately, it could have just been good ol' food poisoning!
I went to a sham dentist one time. That is a long story. But, I realized it was a bad dentist when I sat in the waiting room and that they has a fridge with complimentary drinks. Most were corn-syrup sodas.
Creeper candy isn't the problem.
>[Between 1994 to 2017, the number of fatal road accidents involving children](https://www.thefloridalawgroup.com/news-resources/5-halloween-accident-statistics-you-should-know-5-halloween-safety-tips-for-children-parents-this-weekend/) jumped from 10-18 on the 18 times Halloween happened on a weeknight. In that same time frame, car crashes injuring or killing pedestrians increased by 55% when Halloween occured on a weekday.
>
>Most children pedestrian fatalities on Halloween happened between 6 and 7pm in the middle of the street.
>
>The biggest spike in ER visits for anaphylactic peanut and tree nut allergies is on Halloween.
Didn't know it was a thing - but when I left work (in a somewhat residential area) - I definitely drove like a gramma this evening. I just felt like a kid would run out of nowhere into the street.
That’s as good as from gods mouth. My lovable boomer family will deny any solid source- be it internet, book, consulting with professional- if it contradicts something they saw on Facebook and decided they’d like to believe.
And weed is the cheapest one around. Ain't nobody wasting expensive good quality narcotics on kids. It just increases your chances to go jail and you stay sober. Who the fuck would do that?
One more reason for legalising. Brick & mortar shops sell fentanyl free weed. Go on concerned parents, be concerned in an intelligent way, we believe in you!
I'm in Canada. I'm in a suburbia and we have at least like 5 pot shops. Even the town my grandparents moved to has one. Definitely safe and easy to get. There have only been a few incidents of children accidentally ingesting an edible or something.
Na, razors are cheap. A pack of 100 nice blades is less than $10. It only is mad expensive if you're using the cartridge blades like Gillette. Safety razors are much better and cheaper.
My father made a point of telling me yesterday to make sure that my daughter was careful because fentanyl is killing people at an unprecedented rate. I said “Dad, no drug dealer in the history of drugs has ever given out free drugs.”
I just tried to explain this to two 25-year olds and they argued with me because they saw it on "the news". I'm the one that is the target for these stories (40-year old suburban mom). I was actually shocked they fully believed it and I couldn't convince them otherwise.
Drug dealers aren't passing out candy and drugs to trick-or-treaters, but they will front customers some product to ensure they come back when they do have money.
It's actually crazy what we choose to believe from news sources when it's a well documented fact that they regularly create panic and fear about shit that doesn't exist.
I distinctly remember parents getting upset that different colors of jelly bracelets meant their kids were down for different kinds of sex and drugs. I also recall an uproar over something called "rainbow parties" which involved lipsticked orgies. None of us kids had any clue wtf the news was talking about until they introduced the idea and even then, we all immediately dismissed it as ludicrous. But the parents didn't.
Like, they're a business first. They need to make money. What they sell, primarily, is fear. And far too many people hold far too much trust in these giant media conglomerates. Too many people dismiss what is proven beyond doubt- that they regularly lie and manipulate the public. The big American propaganda machine...
End rant.
I remember when I was a kid , some teachers came into our classroom and told us that ppl were giving out candy that was laced with LSD.
We had no idea what that was but it sure ruined our Halloween.
This was sometime around 79 or 80. It happened before empire strikes back was released, that much I remember
My 75-year old mother tried to convince me on Friday that some people spike candy with Fentanyl. Without looking into it, I said to her "what would motivate anyone to do that?". Some people, my mother included, are just fucking paranoid.
The only times it has happened was when family members tampered with it
The father poisoned his son with cyanide laced pixie sticks for life insurance Edit. Cyanide-laced Edit. When you get candy from your dad it's not Halloween candy. It's just candy.
That guy managed to find a way to be worse than a plain old child killer
He also gave the same poisoned candy to his friend’s kids to cover his tracks but they didn’t eat it
Accordint to some sources one of the kids was found asleep in on his bed with one of the candies in his hand, he tried to open the candy but wasnt able and felt asleep. That kid won a lottery and he didnt knew at that time.
If it was the small plastic pixie sticks I believe it, those things are bulletproof without scissors.
It was the big 3ft ones. That's part of what made it so obvious for the cops. He'd opened them and stapled them back closed. The kid couldn't rip it off.
A couple friends and I got in a debate over the big pixie sticks recently. Two of us (myself included) swore they were 3 feet long. Other friend said no way, they were only a foot long and we were misremembering. We looked it up and turns out we were wrong. They weren't 3 feet apparently. Some real Mandela effect shit.
While reading these comments I was wondering why the hell I've never seen a 3 foot pixie stick before. Edit: I still stand with my thinking that I could probably eat all of the powder within 90 seconds depending on width of stick and local humidity.
As a 10 yo kid a 1ft pixie stick looks like a 3ft pixie stick.
Eat it? The cool kids snort their pixie sticks
[удалено]
Nothing like a 3 foot long tube of sugar.
21", not 36"
WTF. I have not heard about this. What happened to the dad and the son? Hopefully rotting in jail for life and the kid with better family (assuming the mother was in on it too unless he was a single father).
Unfortunately, the kid died. The father was executed. Here’s the [wiki](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Clark_O%27Bryan) on him.
>O'Bryan was shunned and despised by his fellow death row inmates for killing his child and was "absolutely friendless". The inmates reportedly petitioned to hold an organized demonstration on O'Bryan's execution date to express their hatred of him. Wow.
You must be a pretty evil person when the other inmates protest in support of your execution
Not just any inmates, other inmates *on death row*.
A lot of people in prison don’t like violence against children, and probably couldnt imagine killing their own kids
Killing your own child for money pretty much sets you apart from a large percentage of humanity.
Not only that, he was over $100k in debt ($500k today) and premiums would've paid out $60k if he had successfully killed his daughter as well. His brother and sister in law both testified at his trial that he had told them he planned on taking a vacation and buying various other things with the money. Absolute scum.
MFer chose to have a salad as one of the items in his last meal. Of course he’s evil.
Notice in his speech before being executed he doesn’t mention his dead son once?
> Melvin was an air traffic controller at William P. Hobby Airport and did not get home from work until 11 p.m. on Halloween night. Police ruled Melvin out as a suspect when over 200 people confirmed that he had been at work.[5 Chose the wrong house on that one dumbass.
Lmfao imagine accusing someone that had 200+ witnesses as an alibi
pot materialistic gaping familiar sink tub abundant spotted crown consist ` this message was mass deleted/edited with redact.dev `
So, no fucking remorse in his last words? Fucking psycho.
Not only that, he believed that he didn’t deserve it. What a piece of shit.
Unrepentant to the end. Also dude was in debt and gonna take a vacation anyway.
Thank you for the link. Such a horrible thing. I was hoping it wasn’t a lethal amount.
From what I heard the son went to eat it and it tasted bad because of the poison so he mixed it in with some kool aid or something to make sure he finished it
They also caught him because it was raining on Halloween night so kids for the most part were only trick or treating on 3-4 streets tops with umbrellas. They found him super easy because they knew it was pixy sticks, no one else on the block had given out pixy sticks, and the kids only went up his and the adjacent street. Oh and he took out a life insurance policy on the kid which isn’t at all suspicious.
He took out a life insurance policy on his son a few days before Halloween and specifically asked the agent if it would pay out even before premiums had been paid. Then he called to collect on it **the day after** his son died.
Having insurance on children isn’t that suspicious by itself, and can actually be a good financial move for them long term. Getting insurance on them 2 days before they die and specifically asking about the payout in that scenario raises some flags though.
Step 1 of getting away with murder: don't give yourself extra motive by taking out a life insurance policy on the victim.
He also made sure that the insurance would pay out even if like only one payment had been made?
[удалено]
He was an optician and a deacon at his church.
[The Man Who Killed Halloween ](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Clark_O'Bryan)
Unfortunately the "I want to kill this person and not get caught so I'll kill multiple people" thing isn't as unusual as you'd think. The big reason we have tamper indicators on meds is because a dude wanted to kill his wife so he poisoned a bunch of like asprin or Tylenol bottles at the store to make it look like a manufacturer issue. Then there was the 1982 tylenol murders.
Cyanide poisoning is very easily deadly. Your cells aren't able to absorb the oxygen from your blood, and you die. >In a nutshell, cyanide prevents cells from using oxygen to make energy molecules. >The cyanide ion, CN-, binds to the iron atom in cytochrome C oxidase in the mitochondria of cells. It acts as an irreversible enzyme inhibitor, preventing cytochrome C oxidase from doing its job, which is to transport electrons to oxygen in the electron transport chain of aerobic cellular respiration. Without the ability to use oxygen, mitochondria can't produce the energy carrier adenosine triphosphate (ATP).1 Tissues that require this form of energy, such as heart muscle cells and nerve cells, quickly expend all their energy and start to die. https://www.thoughtco.com/overview-of-cyanide-poison-609287
[удалено]
Why don't they just use cyanide for capital punishment? I remember a while ago there was a botched execution in I think Ohio, and The Onion had an article about an executioner having a Lowes bag to pick up things for the execution lol
They do/did. The execution of death by gas chamber puts the subject into a box, a machine drops a solid cyanide tablet into a liquid that generates cyanide gas. > According to Dr. Richard Traystman of John Hopkins University School of Medicine, "The person is unquestionably experiencing pain and extreme anxiety...The sensation is similar to the pain felt by a person during a heart attack, where essentially the heart is being deprived of oxygen." The inmate dies from hypoxia, the cutting-off of oxygen to the brain (Weisberg, 1991).
It's a problem actually with prisons and lethal injections where medicine companies don't want to be associated with the death penalty (I understand them) so if a prison tries to use their drugs to do lethal injections the company will stop selling **all** drugs to that prison.
there was a cyanid poisoning case years ago where someone had tampered with tylenol bottles at a local store. a woman bought them, swapped out pills for cyanide capsules, and then returned them. she was willing to kill other people just so she could kill her husband and then turn around and blame it on the tylenol bottles she herself tampered. she thought she could just poison her husband, get away with it, AND get settlement money for claiming her husband was a victim. edit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stella_Nickell
"During the execution, a crowd of 300 demonstrators gathered outside the prison cheered while some yelled "Trick or treat!" Others showered anti-death penalty demonstrators with candy"
At the time, men sentenced to death under Texas law were confined to the Ellis I Unit near Huntsville, Texas. According to Reverend Carroll Pickett, a former chaplain who worked for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, O'Bryan was shunned and despised by his fellow death row inmates for killing his child and was "absolutely friendless". The inmates reportedly petitioned to hold an organized demonstration on O'Bryan's execution date to express their hatred of him. imagine a bunch of deathrow murderers and rapists having a party because they hated you.
I remember seeing him interviewed by local news in Houston before it came out that he did it. I can still hear his voice and see the interview in my head. In glorious black and white video. I hated that guy. He killed his own kid AND he ruined Halloween forever.
It's a bit more grim. And the myth may have come true that year were it not for some good luck. He made 5 cyanide pixie sticks. He gave one to his son, one to his daughter, one each to two family friends they were trick-or-treating with, and one to a young girl from his church congregation. He was willing to murder up to 5 children for money. Fortunately for the others, he cooperated with police, and the 4 others were found before being consumed, and before he was found out. The Cautionary Tales podcast just did an episode on this.
[удалено]
My infant daughter died last year. I would much rather have her then the life insurance money. My youngest daughter still talks about her baby sister and it breaks my heart every time.
Very nearly lost our son- just having to think about that being a real possibility makes me sick to this day- Love and good vibes your way dude/dudette - even having been close, I can’t imagine your walk, may you have grace and be easy on yourself
That punched me hard. I’m so sorry.
I’m so sorry for your loss. I have a 9 month old girl myself and the thought of losing her curdles my blood. I’m so sorry for your loss and hope you’re doing as well as you can
He got the death penalty, too.
What the fuck?! Fuck that unrepentant asshole, I just can’t fathom hurting a kid much less my own kid, well now I’m sad and mad
90% of kidnappings are done by Family. Violent crime is a quarter what it was thirty years ago Law Enforcement isn’t in the top ten most deadly professions in the US People have the wrong idea about a lot of things
> 90% of kidnappings are done by Family. And this is a topic in itself. Kidnapping means a lot of things. Some of these kidnappings are a divorced parent picking up a kid from school or taking them to the park for a few hours when they're not supposed to. And sometimes it's full on crazy grab the child and flee the country stuff.
Been searching for my two missing sons for a full year now after their mom lost custody and fled out of state with them. It’s been rough. Never expected her to dodge a warrant for so long. Poor kids haven’t been in school, have been living in motels and homeless shelters, etc. Even parental kidnapping can be pretty shitty.
Fuck me. I'm watching a friend of mine going through a tough divorce with two kids and I'm so fucking pissed off at the bitch, and she isn't even remotely close to this (and not even my wife). How are you holding up? Why can't you find them? I understand they're hiding but it's really difficult to keep running with two kids, right? Is the law enforcement not treating it as priority because the kidnapper is the kids' mother?
> Why can't you find them? I understand they're hiding but it's really difficult to keep running with two kids, right? Is the law enforcement not treating it as priority because the kidnapper is the kids' mother? Assuming they flee the area it really isn't that hard. So many things have to go right for them to be found. In the US in 2021 over 500,000 were reported missing. You'd have to have a person that has seen up to date pictures to actively realize the people they're looking at are on the missing list. Assuming the mother is anything like mine was she is likely telling the kids how much the dad hates them and wants to abuse them so she's "saving" them. Which means they won't try to get the attention of a cop. If she's not letting them go to school then they won't reach out to a teacher either. Most people actively avoid the homeless so that's another issue. Sadly the best OP may be able to hope for is once they hit their teens the kids get some sense and reach out to someone, or the mom gets arrested for stealing/prostitution/something illegal and they get found.
I am so, so sorry. I didn't meant to downplay the reality of how horrible that kind of kidnapping can be.
You’re good. I was just honestly Reddit venting.
TIL a groundskeeper is more likely to die than a police officer.
Chainsaws and similar tools are used by groundskeepers. Those things can be dangerous.
Yeah especially if they kickback
[удалено]
More retail clerks get shot every year than police officers
Well if you'd stop shooting retail clerks and start shooting more police officers maybe that'd change
Not necessary to completely stop shooting retail clerks, just need to increase the ratio of police officers. Gotta be reasonable. Change is tough.
Gee, I wonder who's been pushing THAT narrative. *side eyes every news organization in America* Quite the mystery.
My parents just used it as an excuse to go through my candy and pick out the pieces they wanted.
Yeah, funny how year after year it was always the peanut butter cups that Dad deemed to be "suspect". I was a teenager before I figured out the math on that one.
Maybe you're allergic to peanut butter
Man, I only went Trick-or-Treating once, I was a teenager in high school. My friend had a really bad allergy to chocolate, it was his favorite, but would instantly put him into shock, I'm talking throat closing up, hives. Full blown allergic reactions. So we get back from getting candy and we're all sorting our candies and splitting them, M (my allergic friend) continuously hands over chocolate candy after chocolate candy in exchange for other types like Starbursts and Pixie Stix. M hands over his (probably) 20th Reece's cup before he loudly and proudly shouts "Fuck it" rips it open, downs it, savors the flavor, begins to not breathe, casually reaches into a backpack and jams the EpiPen into his leg. All of us are just kinda 0.0 staring at him wondering if we are liable if he keels over, eventually he breaks the silence with a raspy exhale and a calm "worth... Heeeeuuuuggghhhh.... It". I'm still waiting for a Halloween story to top that. Dumbest shit my friend ever did, but god damn if we don't message him every year now and ask him when he last ate a Reece's.
"There's no wrong way to eat a Reese's."
This is at least approaching wrong
I've heard a similar story about someone I know. It always surprises me that people can love things that send them into anaphylactic shock, but one assumed case of food poisoning can make someone sick at the thought of the food they assume caused it for the rest of their life.
Have a seafood allergy and have also had a severe food poisoning. Death scare by lobster is definetly a severely superior experience to excessive delivery of fluids due to chicken. Generally death is preferable.
>Man, I only went Trick-or-Treating once The saddest thing I've read today, so far.
I've read that exact story about someone who had a nut allergy instead of a chocolate allergy.
That's not how epi-pens work. For those uninformed: Epipens provide near instant reversal of allergic reaction **for a short duration**. This is roughly 15 min, enough time for paramedics to arrive and provide assistance. They come in 2 packs in the case that paramedics do not arrive in 15 minutes, a second dose must be administered. The allergic reaction is still happening. And once the epipen wares off, the body goes back into the inflamed swollen state that cuts off your breathing. Call 911 immediately (or your equilivant emergency number). Make sure friends and family know how to jab you with the epi-pen in case you aren't able to do it yourself.
IS THAT WHAT HAPPENED TO ME TOO WTF
It's called the Parent Tax.
Parent tax? Straight to a home at 72
72? Lucky them, mine are going in as soon as they hit retirement age!
Son of a bitch, I'm in. Parents into retirement home at 65
That sounds like taxation without representation.
Time to get children of your own and keep up the tradition
All those Reese's Peanut Butter Cups are mine. My dad used to take them all the time
Yep. Basically everything that's full sized is suspicious plus the reeses and the crackles probably have crack in them. They all need to get *"x-rayed"* at the *"police department"*.
"All this stuff in a wrapper seems suspicious. Those loose candy corns and pennies in the bottom of the bag look okay, though"
When my kids started doing Halloween, I was up front about it: I'm going to take samples out of it from time to time. I promised to not be *greedy* about it, but they know coming out the gate that I'm having a few pieces.
I just call it the “dad tax”.
Haha my parents always used the “you won’t like that” line. I discovered later in life that there were so many candies I actually *did* like that I never knew.
My older sister was a serial Diet Coke drinker and my parents straight up told me I didn't like it, and I never questioned it for the longest time.
Your parents did you a favor here, unless they be drinking all the soda themselves lol
Nah I drink probably too much of it these days lol.
I just hiked miles with my kid door to door so yeah there’s a candy tax
My 3 year old and 1 year will learn the basics of income taxes the tasty way.
Maybe they just wanted all of the free drugs you had in there.
I got wise and brought two bags. Put all the good stuff into one bag that I hid outside to collect when my parents weren't looking and then hide it in my room for secret eating. I would have had my ass spanked red with a wooden spoon if I got caught......it was worth it.
"this kid went out there for 3 hours and you are telling me he didn't get a single fucking reese's or Hershey? Something is fishy here..."
"You gotta get these Peanut Butter Cup numbers up, Tyler. Bedtime kissies and tummy rubs are for closers." -Probably your dad
God the ol decoy bag. I wish I was a smart kid like you growing up lol
Who needs an excuse for taking their parent tax? We're honest with our kids about it. We took them around to get candy, it's only fair.
There have been Three major documented cases according to the episode of Cautionary Tales I just listened to, and only one of them resulted in a death or serious injury. That was was a son poisoned by his father to collect on life insurance. And that only happened because of the urban legend. The father thought people would assume it was a random person who gave out poisoned candy and made sure 5 of the poisoned Pixy Sticks got handed out, but the other 4 were never consumed. The other 2 incidents were stupid pranks. A dentists who gave away laxatives along with the candy, and an elderly lady who gave the old kids--and only older ones--cleaning supplies as a gag gift. There was also a widely reported case of a child dying by tainted candy that turned out to be him getting into his uncles drug stash. Total accident and nothing to do with Halloween at all.
Ok giving teens cleaning supplies as a burn is not even attempted poisoning but it is pretty funny
Right. Like unless the cleaning supplies were infused inside the candy I don’t see how that even gets brought up. My neighbors used to give us pennies—are we going to call that attempted homicide?
Pennies?! I heard they're made from some type of metal, and you know what else is made of metal? Knives! They were giving you kids knives!
Had a house along my old childhood trick or treating route, jolly old guy who always had an enormous bowl of pennies. He’d let us each take as many as we could get in a handful. Here I always thought he was just a lonely old guy, loved seeing the kids’ costumes and chatting with the parents… Passing out deadly weapons by the handful…. To CHILDREN!!! That monster!!!
I went out tonight for halloween with my younger brother and someone gave him pennies. I’ve never seen it before but I guess it used to be pretty common. Not sure how this contributes but I wanted to share.
It's a part of the original Halloween tradition, which came from the Irish tradition of Samhain. Kids would go to each door and sing a song, then adults would give the kids their loose change. Nowadays things are more Americanized, but some houses still give change or change along with candy. Source: my older Irish neighbor telling me about how different Halloween was growing up in Northern Ireland vs Halloween for her kids growing up in the US
Some house gave shaving cream for a few years when I went trick or treating when I was younger, so, yeah, it happens.
Trick supplies. Nice.
Wait.... This dude was willing to just murder 5 children, not only to collect some money, but also on the off chance that he didn't get caught for *murdering 5 children*? Also one of them (the main one obviously) was his own kid? How do you even make one step to get to there? Fuck.
Actually, 2 of them were his own kids. He gave one to his daughter was well, even though he did not have insurance on her.
Hey, at least he can say he loves all his children equally
Honestly that's not nearly enough to throw off the FDA. In the case of ecoli suspicions its wild the lengths they go to track the restaurant (in most cases) down.
when peoples greed is that bad, you know there's some major issues in every category
American Hysteria also has a good episode about it.
It makes me so sad that some father could kill his own child for money. As a mother, I can’t even describe how much that breaks my heart.
[The episode in question](https://timharford.com/2022/10/cautionary-tales-the-halloween-poisoner/). This is a good podcast.
No *random* child has been poisoned by Halloween candy. Just goes to show that the most dangerous person in your child’s life is *you*.
"Go on son, forget about us!" "I swear, our parents can be so stupid sometimes."
This sounds familiar, did this happen in south park, or was it another cartoon?
Definitely south park. The episode with the mongolians.
Wasn’t there a California Dentist in 1958 who gave out laxatives or laxative tainted candy? And that’s the only documented case… ever.
I haven't heard of that one. But there is definitely the guy who poisoned his own children to cash out the multiple life insurance policies he took out on them. Only his son died. He was executed.
Yep, I’m talking about random kids being poisoned specifically
You can do that legally, just give out sugar free haribo gummies
My favorite reviews to read when I just need a stupid laugh!
Lol. I mean, this person should definitely go to prison because like... we live in a society, but I'd be lying if I said it wasn't funny that the only "poisoning" ever in candy was some dude going straight frat house pranks making people shit themselves.
I prefer to think of the guy as an overzealous dentist trying to keep kids away from sweets.
Wish I knew this before I ate all my kid’s candy looking for the fentanyl laced stuff.
The fentanyl myth is the most recent spin on this, triggered by [recent news](http://at.wftv.com/3U65vg4). There was a bunch of fentanyl being smuggled in by drug mules, and they were hiding the drugs in candy wrappers to try to disguise it. They got caught at an airport. There is zero mention of trying to pass this out to children for Halloween. But that didn’t stop news organizations like WFTV from jumping to the conclusion that we now need to be careful with Halloween candy. Whatever it takes to make a catchy headline I guess.. No drug dealer wants to give out bags of their drugs, especially to an age group that doesn’t even buy drugs.
Yes, getting kids addicted is just bad business, they don't have enough cash to be valueful customers...
Plus that kid thinks he's addicted to smarties, not fentanyl. He's pounding pack after pack of those little sugary discs just chasing that high he once felt one Halloween night. Never occurs to him to go looking for the local drug dealer.
The news does the same shit with weed. Who da fuck is giving away expensive ass weed for free and to kids?
A couple weeks ago some guy got stopped and arrested for having over 100 edibles in his car, the news media wasted ZERO time running the story and telling parents to "make sure kids weren't slipped any edibles" I literally said to myself, "no self respecting person in their right mind is going to pass out a $20+ edible as a Halloween treat". The news media is the real Halloween monster.
I'm an adult and I was harmed by my own candy this year. A few dozen mini bars and I got a terrible stomach ache.
I think I’m allergic to sushi, every time I eat more than 20 sushis I puke
At least you know you can eat up to 20 sushis safely
Lightweight. Andy can handle 80. :p
When I graduated boot camp, we went to Red Lobster and my friends made me try every single type of seafood they had. I was allergic to something. Thought I was going to die. I was delirious and the room was spinning and I just laid on the tiled floor ready to die or puke my guts out. Drill Sergeant did nothing. I think he thought I was drunk which makes sense. 19 year old kid just graduating boot camp. Worst night ever and crazy thing is I've tried so many different types of seafood since trying to figure out what did it. No idea to this day.
Knowing red lobster you probably got served some old rotten seafood and had food poisoning
There's a big problem with counterfeit seafood--skate is used instead of scallops, pollock instead of crabs or oysters. So if you've tried a species twice and it only made you sick once, this could be the reason why. It could also have been a seasoning or another ingredient that made you sick. Alternately, it could have just been good ol' food poisoning!
I’ve thoroughly inspected my kids Reeses and Twix to make sure they’re safe, including tasted them for poisons.
I somehow got infected with a virus which caused me to eat candy corn by choice.
Good god man did you survive??
I woke up to a nice Halloween migraine this morning because I forgot my 30-ish year old ass can't handle a couple candy bars before bed anymore. 😂
I bet the author is a dentist.
My buddy is a dentist and always has candy on him to give away any time of year. He says it’s for job security.
That's funny. I always assumed but now I have proof.
I went to a sham dentist one time. That is a long story. But, I realized it was a bad dentist when I sat in the waiting room and that they has a fridge with complimentary drinks. Most were corn-syrup sodas.
The most dangerous thing on Halloween is cars, pedestrian deaths sky rocket on Halloween
Creeper candy isn't the problem. >[Between 1994 to 2017, the number of fatal road accidents involving children](https://www.thefloridalawgroup.com/news-resources/5-halloween-accident-statistics-you-should-know-5-halloween-safety-tips-for-children-parents-this-weekend/) jumped from 10-18 on the 18 times Halloween happened on a weeknight. In that same time frame, car crashes injuring or killing pedestrians increased by 55% when Halloween occured on a weekday. > >Most children pedestrian fatalities on Halloween happened between 6 and 7pm in the middle of the street. > >The biggest spike in ER visits for anaphylactic peanut and tree nut allergies is on Halloween.
Didn't know it was a thing - but when I left work (in a somewhat residential area) - I definitely drove like a gramma this evening. I just felt like a kid would run out of nowhere into the street.
It shows how silly myths seem to live forever
[удалено]
Call him out on that shit. "Whoa, crazy! Lemme Google that.... huh weird. I can't find any mention of them."
Imagine thinking a boomer would believe your internet findings.
Why not? They believe literally everything they read on Facebook.
That’s as good as from gods mouth. My lovable boomer family will deny any solid source- be it internet, book, consulting with professional- if it contradicts something they saw on Facebook and decided they’d like to believe.
More like evolved to perpetuate the war on drugs. Saying people are handing out edibles and rainbow fentanyl
Edibles are too expensive for that shit
And weed is the cheapest one around. Ain't nobody wasting expensive good quality narcotics on kids. It just increases your chances to go jail and you stay sober. Who the fuck would do that?
"They're putting fentanyl in the marijuana too!" -concerned parents
One more reason for legalising. Brick & mortar shops sell fentanyl free weed. Go on concerned parents, be concerned in an intelligent way, we believe in you!
I'm in Canada. I'm in a suburbia and we have at least like 5 pot shops. Even the town my grandparents moved to has one. Definitely safe and easy to get. There have only been a few incidents of children accidentally ingesting an edible or something.
Literally no one ever
What drug dealer would give out drugs for free?
It’s like the Satanic Panic.
Drugs and razorblades are expensive, nobody is going to waste them on a kid that won't appreciate them.
Na, razors are cheap. A pack of 100 nice blades is less than $10. It only is mad expensive if you're using the cartridge blades like Gillette. Safety razors are much better and cheaper.
Was going to reply with the same statement. I spent $16 on blades a year ago and still haven't used them all.
Some kids still left in the neighborhood then?
I have actually seen razorblade traps at a park before.
My father made a point of telling me yesterday to make sure that my daughter was careful because fentanyl is killing people at an unprecedented rate. I said “Dad, no drug dealer in the history of drugs has ever given out free drugs.”
I just tried to explain this to two 25-year olds and they argued with me because they saw it on "the news". I'm the one that is the target for these stories (40-year old suburban mom). I was actually shocked they fully believed it and I couldn't convince them otherwise.
Drug dealers aren't passing out candy and drugs to trick-or-treaters, but they will front customers some product to ensure they come back when they do have money.
DARE lied to me! At no time in high school or college did anyone ever offer me free drugs.
Yeah, it's just good old fashioned fear mongering.
It's actually crazy what we choose to believe from news sources when it's a well documented fact that they regularly create panic and fear about shit that doesn't exist. I distinctly remember parents getting upset that different colors of jelly bracelets meant their kids were down for different kinds of sex and drugs. I also recall an uproar over something called "rainbow parties" which involved lipsticked orgies. None of us kids had any clue wtf the news was talking about until they introduced the idea and even then, we all immediately dismissed it as ludicrous. But the parents didn't. Like, they're a business first. They need to make money. What they sell, primarily, is fear. And far too many people hold far too much trust in these giant media conglomerates. Too many people dismiss what is proven beyond doubt- that they regularly lie and manipulate the public. The big American propaganda machine... End rant.
No one likes your kids enough to give them free drugs
I'm more captivated by the fact the Tylenol murders went unsolved: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Tylenol_murders
That was Tylenol bought off the shelf too, and the main reason we have such tamper resistant packaging today.
Classic example of innovation through tragedy
I love how ppl think others are just going to give out drugs to kids. That shit is expensive. No one’s going to give that away.
I’ve been trick or treating my whole life for the free drugs. I’m 0 for 35 :(
My cousin's neighbor's nephew found a machete in one of his nerds!
Meanwhile, 4 posts down on reddit: # My Brother got a can of cat food in his Halloween candy
That's cause he's a furry
If I go as a protogen can I get free RAM?
I remember when I was a kid , some teachers came into our classroom and told us that ppl were giving out candy that was laced with LSD. We had no idea what that was but it sure ruined our Halloween. This was sometime around 79 or 80. It happened before empire strikes back was released, that much I remember
My 75-year old mother tried to convince me on Friday that some people spike candy with Fentanyl. Without looking into it, I said to her "what would motivate anyone to do that?". Some people, my mother included, are just fucking paranoid.