Don’t Take Candy from Strangers: The History of Halloween Candy Tampering

Californian dentist William V. Shyne distributed 450 candies to children on October 31, 1959. Each candy contained an aloe pill, a common laxative at the time. The kids fell ill, experiencing symptoms such as vomiting and stomach pain. The normal adult dosage for the aloe pills is two pills. The children were given more than 30. That Halloween, instead of getting treats, those kids got poisoned.

For most children, Halloween is a time of excitement, from the fantastical costumes to the buckets stuffed full of various types of candy. The routine is simple: walk up to a doorstep, yell out “trick-or-treat,” and candy will be tossed into your basket. But, there’s a problem. These aren’t doorsteps of familiar faces or close friends, but those of complete strangers who children expect candy from. How can we be sure that these candies are safe?

Throughout the years, there have been many cases of tampered candy, all tracing back to the earliest Halloween incident perpetrated by Shyne. The case made headlines and, as one of the first tales of tainted Halloween candy, inspired an entire panic surrounding Halloween candy.

Another famous case is that of Helen Pfeil, a Long Island resident who distributed various inedible items such as dog biscuits, arsenic-laced ant baits, and metal mesh scrubbing pads as treats. Pfeil denied that she had any malicious intentions in handing out tampered treats but pleaded guilty to endangering children at her 1964 trial. She was later committed to a mental hospital for observation. There was never a record of anyone being harmed by her arsenic-laced treats, which added to the Halloween panic.

However, unlike Pfeil’s case, there has been a Halloween candy tampering incident that led to a child’s death. Texas optician Ronald Clark O’Byran handed out cyanide-spiked Pixy Stix candy to several children while trick-or-treating with his own children in 1974. Timothy O’Bryan, his eight-year-old son, died later that night after ingesting one. Ronald O’Bryan was convicted for his crime a decade later.

There were many reports in 1983 of candies being handed out by “twisted” strangers that contained sharp objects such as razor blades, needles, and shards of glass that caused the deaths of several children, with hundreds more narrowingly escaping severe injury.

While these events took place many decades ago, cases of poisoned candy have begun popping up again. Denver police discovered candies, closely resembling popular candies at the time, laced with marijuana in 2014. Even more recently, on Halloween 2021, Florida officials reported that an eight-year-old girl had been cut by an X-Acto blade razor hidden in a wrapped chocolate. The incident led to a widespread investigation by the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Department, which detected other cases of sharp objects hidden in Halloween candies in Fostoria, Ohio. Despite starting almost seven decades ago, the Halloween candy tampering scare has cemented itself as an underlying threat.

However, while the threat of Halloween candy is present, cases of candy tampering are not incredibly frequent in the United States. Sociologist at the University of Delaware Joel Best compiled newspaper reports from 1958 to 1983 and claimed that approximately fewer than 90 instances of reported candy tampering actually resulted in severe harm. He attributes much of this claim, however, to the fact that older candy tampering cases involved sharp items and evidently inedible objects that could be easily avoided with more careful inspection. Now, drugs such as THC and Delta-8 are more commonly used in tampering cases, and these substances are much harder to detect. It’s not always apparent at first that a child has ingested THC-spiked candy, as there aren’t any immediate repercussions similar to swallowing a razor. Therefore, despite the fact that Halloween candy cases are infrequent, it has become substantially harder to detect instances of tampering.

About 41.1 million children go trick-or-treating each Halloween in the United States. As a result, trying to solve the issue of Halloween candy tampering by discouraging trick-or-treating is nearly impossible. What can be done, however, is more careful examination of Halloween candy. Parents should check their children’s candy to make sure that they haven’t been meddled with in any way. Common red flags to look for include unwrapped, odd, or discolored candies. Just because it’s Halloween doesn’t mean that taking candy from strangers is safe, even if an insatiable sweet tooth needs to be satisfied.