13 Nights of Halloween: Night 13 - The Man Who Killed Halloween

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Greetings, listeners. Thank you for joining us here on the final night of the 13 Nights of Halloween event on Fireside Folklore with Hades. I wrestled with myself long and hard about telling this final tale. 

Unlike all of the other stories on our program, this one is 100% true. So why did I have second thoughts about telling it? As the Lord of the Underworld, I've seen more than my fair share of death, far too many children. The young and the innocent who did nothing wrong except for being born into the wrong group, in the wrong country, and at the wrong time. 

So it gives me no pleasure to tell this tale of true crime. But this tale was the origin of many urban legends around Halloween candy being filled with razor blades, drugs, and other unsavory surprises. So I decided to tell it as an opportunity to show you how urban legends are born, and how sometimes the truth can be far more sinister than fiction. 

Now friends, let the storytelling begin. The year was 1974 and the setting was a quiet little town known as Pasadena, Texas. Rain was falling steadily on that fateful Halloween night, casting an eerie gloom over the neighborhood. 

Children undeterred by the weather scurried from house to house in their colorful costumes, their laughter echoing through the damp air. Among them was 8-year-old Timothy O'Bryan, a bright and eager boy who was excited to go trick-or-treating with his father, Ronald Clark O'Bryan, his 10-year-old sister Elizabeth, and two other children from their neighborhood. Timothy did not know, could not know, that this would be his last Halloween, and that the greatest threat to his safety wasn't lurking in the shadows, but walking right beside him. 

As the group made their way through the neighborhood, they came upon a darkened house. The children, eager for more treats, ran up to the door and knocked. No answer came. 

Ronald O'Bryan, ever the helpful father, offered to stay behind and keep trying while the others moved on to the next house. A few moments later he caught up with the group, proudly presenting five large Pixy Stix. These colorful tubes of flavored sugar were a coveted prize, particularly because these were the large ones not normally seen, not even on Halloween, delighting the children immensely. 

When the family went home for the night, Ronald gave that fifth Pixy Stix to a 10-year-old boy he knew from church. Before bed, Ronald allowed his two children to enjoy a bit of candy before turning in for the night. He encouraged his son to eat the Pixy Stix. 

Ronald watched intently as his son struggled to open the large tube, even offering to help. Finally, Timothy had his father help him loosen the powder, because it wasn't coming out. When he poured the powder into his mouth, the young boy complained that it tasted bitter. 

Rather than take his son's concern seriously, Ronald gave him some Kool-Aid to wash away the acrid taste. Unbeknownst to Timothy, his father had laced the Pixy Stix with a lethal dose of potassium cyanide. Within moments, the boy began convulsing violently, his small body wracked with pain as the poison coursed through his system. 

Ronald, in a twisted display of fatherly concern, rushed his son to the hospital, but it was too late. Timothy O'Bryan was pronounced dead less than an hour after consuming the tainted candy. The community was gripped by fear, and that year police departments were inundated with candy from concerned parents, frantically seeking to have their children's Halloween hauls tested for poison. 

The tragedy sent shockwaves through the nation, forever altering the perception of Halloween and trick-or-treating. Ronald Clark O'Bryan wasn't initially suspected of the crime, both because of his reputation as a deacon at the Second Baptist Church, and because he was the one to rush his son to the hospital when the boy fell ill. However, as investigators followed up on leads in the case, unsettling truths came to light.

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The children had only trick-or-treated on two streets in Pasadena as a result of the rain that night. None of the homes they had visited had handed out Pixy Stix. The home where Mr. O'Bryan had allegedly gotten those Pixy Stix belonged to a man named Courtney Melvin, an air traffic controller at William P. Hobby Airport. 

Mr. Melvin had an iron-clad alibi due to being seen by over 200 people during his shift that night. Fortunately, none of the other children who received Pixy Stix from Ronald had consumed them, narrowly escaping a similar fate. Though the boy from church was found asleep with the mercifully unopened Pixy Stix clutched in his hand, unopened due to the copious amount of staples Mr. O'Bryan had used to reseal the candy after he had poisoned it. 

As the investigation progressed, a disturbing motive emerged. Ronald O'Bryan, it was discovered, was deeply in debt and had recently taken out substantial life insurance policies on both of his children. The policies on Timothy alone totaled $40,000, a considerable sum in 1974. 

The pieces of this grim puzzle began to fall into place, revealing a father's unthinkable plot to murder his own children for financial gain. The trial that followed was a media sensation, with Ronald O'Bryan quickly earning the moniker, The Candyman, or The Man Who Killed Halloween. Despite his protestations of innocence, the evidence against him was overwhelming.

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The jury took less than an hour to find him guilty of capital murder and four counts of attempted murder for the Pixy Stix given to the other children. On March 31, 1984, nearly a decade after his heinous crime, Ronald Clark O'Bryan met his fate in the execution chamber at the Texas State Penitentiary in Huntsville. As the lethal injection was administered, a crowd outside chanted, Trick or Treat, while throwing candy, an ironically twisted finale to a tragically haunted tale. 

Thankfully, listeners, though this tale has spawned urban legends about tainted Halloween candy. No other cases of children being poisoned by Halloween treats, whether that be from family members or strangers, have ever been verified, giving me hope that humanity still retains some shred of decency, even in these dark and troubled times. Now, as you celebrate Halloween in your own way, remember that it isn't the dead you should fear, nor the zombies, witches, and vampires you summon from the hidden corners of your imagination.

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No, my dear listeners, it is power, avarice, corruption, and hatred which have wrought the most destruction upon your world, and will continue to do so if you remain with your head in the sand, complacent and content to stay silent unless something affects you, like the frog being slowly boiled alive. By the time you realize the horrific truth, the death of your liberties, it may be far too late. All it takes, listeners, is a spark of courage of defiance, and the determination to do something no matter how seemingly insignificant.

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After all, every fire begins with a single spark, and I know one lies dormant within you.