DASTARDLY DADS FROM THE ARCHIVES (Houston, Texas - 1974)

Even if we don't remember dad RONALD O'BRYAN's name, we all remember the paranoia that continues to "haunt" Halloween to this day.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/local/crime/Texas-father-poisons-son_with-trick-or-treat-candy_-1373115-106322308.html

Crime History: Texas father poisons son with trick-or-treat candy
By: Scott McCabe
Examiner Staff Writer
October 29, 2010

On this day, Oct. 31, in 1974, Ronald O'Bryan killed his 8-year-old son Timothy by giving him cyanide-laced trick-or-treat candy.

Timothy pouring powdered sweetener from a Pixy Stix straw into his mouth, complained that it tasted bitter. O'Bryan gave him some Kool-Aid to wash the taste out.

Houston-area detectives quickly combed the neighborhood, recovering four other Pixy Stix. One straw was still clutched in the hand of a child who'd fallen asleep after failing to open the straw, which had been stapled shut. Two inches of each straw had been packed with a deadly dose of cyanide.

Bryan became known as "The Man Who Killed Halloween," and was sentenced to death. Fellow inmates dubbed him "Candy Man." He was executed by lethal injection in 1984.

-Scott McCabe

Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/local/crime/Texas-father-poisons-son_with-trick-or-treat-candy_-1373115-106322308.html#ixzz143ISyFje