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The Dick Who Ruined Pixy Stix
Written By Michael Price
What was your favorite candy to find in your Halloween loot after you came home from a long night of door-knocking and faking adorable for the neighbors? Gun to my head, my answer would have to be Pixy Stix. There’s something about that tart rush of pure pulverized sugar that put my mind in the right loopy place for the newest Tree-house of Horror installment.
But somewhere down the line I had to kick the habit, and not by choice. One Halloween, my parents wanted to check my haul – not to beam with pride at just how much candy I’d finagled, nor to see just what kind of sugar-rush they could expect over the next several weeks – but to ditch all the Pixy Stix straight in the trash. Turns out they’d heard something on the news about a wacko replacing the crystalline deliciousness with (take your pick):
1) cocaine
2) meth
3) poison
4) anthrax
5) pure powdered Armageddon
Jumbo Pixy Stix are awesome. Right up until the convulsions, that is. And the vomiting. And the passing out. And the dying en route to the hospital.
Chances are if you lived in a suburban neighborhood with typically reactionary suburban parents, you had something similar happen to you, too. Or maybe it was razor blades in candy apples. Or acid-filled bubble gum. Or metal shavings mixed in amongst the coconut ribbons of a Mounds bar. It was an epidemic sweeping the nation! said breathless news reports with all the self-seriousness and unearned certitude that really was sweeping the nation in the late ’80s.
But did you — or your folks – ever really know anyone who came down with anything more serious than a stomachache after eating Halloween candy? Of course not. The “epidemic” was nothing more than the upswing of the eternal ebb and flow of moral panics in this country.
Sort of. OK, so the odds of it ever happening to you are probably smaller than encountering the honest-to-goodness alien ghost of Dracula (scratch that; the sexy alien ghost of Dracula) on Halloween, but a few kids really have run afoul of some poisonous or booby-trapped candy given to them by exactly the kind of madman your parents worried themselves sick over.
The case most pertinent to my own candy love affair happened in 1974. Eight-year-old Timmy O’Bryan (his actual name, not a Lifetime movie adaptation name) went trick-or-treating in his suburban Houston neighborhood like every other kid. His costume has been lost to time, but it being 1974, he was probably Sad Richard Nixon or Patty Hearst Kidnapper. Anyway, he made his rounds, knocked over some pumpkins, egged some houses – whatever mischief kids got into back then – and returned home to dig into his sugar sack and catch the Halloween special of Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids.
His father, Ronald Clark O’Bryan, ever helpful, suggested this big ol’ Jumbo Pixy Stix right here. Man, does that look good, and don’t you want to eat this one first, Little Timmy, son whom I adore and cherish? And Timmy, being the adored and cherish little son he was, complied. Hell, I would've, too. Jumbo Pixy Stix are awesome.
Right up until the convulsions, that is. And the vomiting. And the passing out. And the dying en route to the hospital.
When doctors autopsied the boy, they found he’d been poisoned with cyanide. With some CSI¬ trickery, they traced the poison to the Pixy Stix he’d eaten. The town freaked. Pixy Stix were tossed out by the thousands. Neighbor turned on neighbor. The police questioned everyone who’d handed out candy that night. Who was this sick creep handing out deadly goodies?
Well, if you’ve ever seen a true crime show, you know where this is headed. Ronald O’Bryan was a man deep in debt and, curiously, he’d only months prior taken out a size-able life insurance policy on his children. It didn't take Columbo to figure out what happened. The elder O’Bryan had laced a Pixy Stix with cyanide earlier in the night and surreptitiously slipped the tainted treat into his son’s bag.
The crime earned him the nickname “The Candyman,” and Texas officials eventually executed him on March 31, 1984. News reports note that college kids showed up wearing Halloween masks to cheer on his execution.
Can you blame them? That was the man that 10 years ago had caused their parents to chuck out much of their Halloween haul. But the damage to the American psyche was much deeper, and the crime inspired a moral panic that continues to this day. In a few days, you’ll see blog posts and news reports imploring parents to check their children’s stash and toss out anything suspicious. And to an overly cautious parent, those warnings will lead to the wholesale slaughter of millions of Mike and Ikes, Gummy Worms, Jolly Ranchers and Sugar Daddies. What a waste.
The weird thing about moral panics, though, is their ability to fulfill their own destinies. The panickers play the victims in their own invented tragedy, but there’s always some sicko willing to play the villain. And so in the wake of little Timmy O’Bryan’s unfortunate demise at the hands of his father, a few random pseudo-copycats have popped up, no doubt inspired by the public’s gruesome imagined epidemic. In 1988, someone poked a needle into a candy apple in Maryland. And reports pop up every now and then of kids, having heard the legends, spiking their friends’ candy with razor blades or needles as a prank. But the O’Bryan case remains the only one on record of a child dying from tainted Halloween candy.
So if you’ve got a kid, ease off the caution pedal a bit this year. Relax. No one spiked his or her Pixy Stix with cyanide. Let the little goblin enjoy some sugar in peace for just one night, damn it.
Of course, doesn't hurt to take out a life insurance policy on them. You know, just in case.
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"Resistant is futile,
When it is the
Candyman who,
Got you hooked.
Fear the legend,
Fear the Candyman!"
For more Candyman quotes, go to:
http://baronessofblades.deviantart.com/favourites/48334489
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The Legend of Candyman S1E2
Christina Aguilera - Candyman (Edit)
Candyman trailer
For more information about the Hollywood Horror movie, "Candyman" please go to:
http://fascinationwithfear.blogspot.com/2010/10/31-days-31-faves-candyman.html
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