How Tampered Halloween Candy Affected ’90s Trick-or-Treating

In 1974, a man named Ronald O’Bryan poisoned his own eight-year-old son, Timothy, for a life insurance payout. He laced a giant Pixy Stix tube with potassium cyanide and gave it to him on Halloween night. O’Bryan also distributed the poisoned candy to his daughter and three other children, but they fortunately did not consume it. He tried to blame a mysterious stranger, but police uncovered his plot. O’Bryan was convicted of capital murder and executed in 1984.