Ronald Clark o'brian aka the candy man

Halloween is the time of year when our children go from door to door , dressed up as ghosts witches and ghouls, knocking on strangers doors and asking for treats all in the name of fun. And then going home and devouring the sweet candy , whilst listening to spooky stories. On todays episode I wont be telling you a story of the evils of monsters on halloween but instead a true story that occurred one Halloween when a father, Ronald Clark O'Bryan, aka the man who ruined Halloween, or the candy man. this was the title given to him after he poisoned his 8 year old son Timothy by feeding him candy laced with potassium cyanide. The reason ? to claim the life insurance from his 8 year old child . Halloween night On Halloween night in 1974 in Deer Park Texas, the streets were alive with excited children going from door to door asking, "trick or treat" ? Ronald Clark O'Bryan, was out walking the streets with his 2 children , Timothy , and Elizabeth, he was also accompanied by his next door neighbour, and his 2 children. The children ran up to a house and proceeded to knock ,buckets at the ready to collect whatever candy was given to them ,but after a few attempts at knocking it became obvious no one was home ,so the neighbour and all 4 children rushed off to the next house, leaving , O'Bryan behind where he lingered for a while , Eventually he caught up with his group and revealed 5 pixie stix that had apparently been handed to him by the previous house who answered the door as they left. He gave one each to his children and the neighbours children, and later gave the fifth candy to a young boy who he recognised from church. Unknown to every one O'Bryan had sabotaged the candy and laced the all with cyanide. Later in the O'Bryan house that night ,timothy asked if he could eat some of his candy ,he picked up the pixie Stix and proceeded to open the wrapper, but was struggling ,his father helped him open the laced candy and watched him pour the powder down his throat, TImothy complained about the bitter taste so his father gave him a drink to wash it down . IT wasn't long before Timothy started to complain of stomach pains, he rushed to the bathroom where he vomited and then started to convulse.The 8 year old then went limp in his fathers arms and died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. The autopsy found the laced candy in the little boys system,there was, enough to kill 2 grown adults. The authorities quickly rounded up all the candy in the area ,especially looking for any pixie stix. luckily Elizabeth and the neighbours children had not eaten the candy and it was recovered from them. The parents of the 5th child ,the boy from church, had been found fast asleep in his bed with the pixy stick in his hand unopened. luckily he had been unable to open the candy and had fallen asleep whilst trying to unwrap it. At this time O'Bryan was not a suspect , but it was just a matter of time before police grew suspicious. Evidence starts to build Police started to show suspicion after finding out O'Bryan didn't visit that many houses on Halloween night,and the ones he did visit didn't seem to be handing out pixie Stix . O'Bryan also was found to have given false information to the police after stating that the house they knocked at with no answer, eventually opened the door after his neighbour and the children left for the next house .he told police the gentleman behind the door handed him 5 pixie Stix and then shut the door . The house belonged to a Mr Courtney Melvin who worked as a air traffic controller , and on Halloween night he was at work, only arriving home around 11 pm. he also had over 200 witnesses to confirm this ,ruling him out as a suspect . Becoming more and more suspicious of O'Bryan, the police did a bit more digging into his personal finances and discovered he was over $100,000 in debt . They also discovered that he had taken out life insurance on his two children and had increased the pay out a few time leading up to Halloween . It was also discovered that the day after his 8 year olds death he had rang up the insurance company to make a claim on his deceased son. As if this wasn't enough the police also discovered that O'Brian had tried to purchase some cyanide from a local chemical factory ,but didn't bother because he could only purchase in large quantities . to this day its still not known where exactly he purchased the cyanide from . The police joined the dots and on November the 5th 1974 they arrested O'Bryan ,who pleaded not guilty . The evidence continued to mount up. Many people testified including workers from the chemical factory and O'Bryan's work colleagues who claimed for almost a year he had obsessed over cyanide, researching it endlessly and often discussing its effects on a person and how much it would take of the substance to kill a person . O'Bryan's sister also testified stating that O'Bryan talked about claiming the money from his sons insurance,e and boasting about buying things, and going away on a vacation . The jury found him guilty and sentenced him to death on the 23rd of June 1975, O'Bryan's wife later filed for divorce and remarried , her new husband adopted Elizabeth and the all started a new life together under a new name. O'Bryan's time in prison was not pleasant ,the prisoners did not like child killers and they made it known. after many delays O'Bryan's execution finally went through on march the 31st 1984 by lethal injection . outside there was a crowd of 300 of more , once the news broke they all cheered and threw candy at anti death penalty demonstrators whilst shouting trick or treat over and over again. We all love a good spooky stories at Halloween ,but some times the most sickening and saddening ,are the true ones .