Kristen Cheser
Staff Writer
With a lot of fear revolving around Halloween candy, many organizations put on events to allow for a safe environment for children to trick or treat. For example, the Ivinson Memorial Hospital hosts Boofest.
“It provides an opportunity for safe trick or treating on Halloween,” said Sagan Wheeler, the manager of marketing at the Ivinson Memorial Hospital. “As an additional bonus, children get to come to the hospital for a fun event. It’s [makes for] a less scary visit when they have to come into the hospital later.”
Wheeler said she had not heard of any children ever being poisoned or harmed by tampered candy in her time.
Most fears of tampered candy are based on isolated incidents that occured in the past.
The fear of tampered candy might have began in 1970. According to a New York Times article from Nov. 10 1970, a five-year-old boy overdosed on heroin that seemingly had been put in his Halloween candy. It was later discovered that he had consumed the drug from his uncle’s heroin stash and his family contaminated his candy after his death in order to cover-up the illegal drug usage.
The Tylenol murders in 1984 are often used as evidence for why people should distrust Halloween candy despite the difference in products. According to a Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) article from Sept. 29 2014, from Sept. to Oct. of 1982, seven people died as a result of Tylenol being tampered with. The police found cyanide inside the Tylenol. The murderer was never caught but the deaths lead to companies adopting new packaging policies with designs that could not be tampered with without notice.
That being said, there are at least two instances of someone intentionally lacing children’s candy with harmful substances.
The American Broadcasting Company (ABS) reported on Oct. 31 2018 in 1974, five children were given pixy sticks laced with cyanide by Ronald O’Bryan. One of the children, his son, died as a result of the poisoned candy. It was later discovered that this was because O’Bryan recently had taken out large life insurance policies on his children. O’Bryan’s case is one of the few instances of someone intentionally poisoning candy for children.
Then, in 2014, Mental Floss reported in 2000, James Joseph Smith allegedly put needles inside Snickers and handed them out on Halloween. However, only one teenager was poked by a needle and all other children were unharmed. Smith was still arrested.
Despite the occurrences of intentionally harmful candy being given to children few and far between, widespread fear still exists.
