Pod Insights Criminology The Candy Man About this episode On October 31st, 1974, the O'Bryan family set out for Halloween in Deer Park, just outside of Houston, Texas. Despite the rain, Ronald Clark O'Bryan and neighbor Jim Bates took their kids, four in total, out to trick or treating. But this Halloween turned out to be fatal for one of the O'Bryan children. Join Mike and Morf as they discuss The Candy Man. Timothy O'Bryan ate a Pixy Stix that night, became extremely ill, and died. This caused a massive panic throughout the area. The police weren't sure who was giving out laced candy and how much was out there. People were shocked when the police figured out who perpetrated this heinous act. You can help support the show through Patreon. We'd love to connect with listeners on social media. We are available on the following platforms: Facebook - Facebook Discussion group - Instagram - Threads - X Formerly Twitter - Blue Sky - Twitch - Tik Tok Criminology is an Emash Digital production hosted by Mike Ferguson and Mike Morford.
Transcript 0:00 Speaker 00 Criminology is a true crime podcast that may contain discussion about violent or disturbing topics. Listener discretion is advised.
0:40 Speaker 01 Hello, everyone, and welcome to episode 382 of the Criminology Podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson.
0:45 Speaker 02 And this is Mike Morford.
0:47 Speaker 01 Mr. Morford, how you doing this week, buddy?
0:49 Speaker 02 I'm doing pretty good. How you doing?
0:51 Speaker 01 I'm having a great week. I really am. My whole family has plans this weekend to go to, you know, kind of one of those Halloween or October type pumpkin farms, get some apple cider, looking forward to that.
1:09 Speaker 02 Yeah, that's always fun. The good part about fall and, you know, obviously we down in Florida here, we still celebrate Halloween, but it's not quite the same because, you know, that cold fall air that you get up in the Northeast, we just don't have that. So it's a little bit different, but we do have a lot of awesome, you know, trunk or treats and there's some really good neighborhoods for trick or treating. So my, my kids are excited about it.
1:30 Speaker 01 Well, let's go ahead and give our Patreon shout outs. We had Sierra Mitchell and Carla Borges. So great new support. We really appreciate it.
1:40 Speaker 02 Yeah, thank you so much for that support. It really helps us out. For anyone else that would like to help support the show, head over to patreon.com/criminology to get started.
1:48 Speaker 01 Well, let's go ahead and dive into this week's episode. And if you were listening at the very beginning, you no doubt heard that creepy organ music and longtime listeners of the show know that that really only means one thing. It's time for our annual Halloween episode, which we cover a really creepy case or a case that is connected to Halloween and. Some way. And this year we have a good one for you. We're talking about a sinister character called the Candyman. Now, a lot of true crime listeners may immediately think of the serial killer Dean Corle. And for other people, maybe the creepy killer from the 1992 horror movie comes to mind. But we're talking about a different Candyman
2:31 Speaker 01 altogether. Some people may also know this man by another nickname, the Pixie Stick Killer. And what this man did was very disturbing. And his actions would change Halloween for a lot of people forever.
2:44 Speaker 02 October 31, 1974, Halloween for the O'Brien family started out like a lot of families that year. It was raining off and on that day in Deer Park, just outside of Houston, Texas. The O'Brien kids, eight year old Timothy, and his little sister, five year old Elizabeth, were likely antsy during dinner because they couldn't go trick or treating until after everyone had finished eating. Despite the rain, Ronald Clark O'Brien and neighbor Jim Bates took their kids, four total, out to trick or treat. They went to the nearby town of Pasadena, hoping the weather was a bit nicer. They didn't plan to stay out too long, but trick or treating is kind of a rain or shine type of thing. You don't get to make up for it later. So the kids were determined to score some candy. They went door to door, showed
3:28 Speaker 02 off their costumes, and got plenty of candy.
3:31 Speaker 01 And I don't know about you, Morph, but I used to love Halloween. When I was a kid, you know, I can remember, you know, planning out the costume for, you know, however long ahead of time. And then on the night of, getting my friends together and we had like, we lived in like a little neighborhood or platter subdivision, whatever you want to call it, depends on where you're from, I think for a lot of people. And we would just all go together and make our route, picking up as much candy as we could. It was a, it was a great night, but it was rain or shine. That was the thing. You know, it didn't matter if it was 40 degrees, 70 degrees, cold rain, you were getting that candy.
4:20 Speaker 02 Yeah. If you're a kid and it's a little wet out, you're not really worried about that. And I remember a couple of times going out and sort of using an umbrella. And then when we walk up to the door, we dodged the rain and as best we could. And you know, kids getting that sugar, there's not much that's going to stand in their way.
4:37 Speaker 01 Now I still love Halloween, not as much, you know, now it's like you, you're paying for the candy and you got to stand at the door. Right. And, and, and give it out. But I do like seeing all the kids in their costumes and, and all that. I mean, it's a, it's a fun holiday. It's just a little different when you're the one that has to provide the candy.
4:59 Speaker 02 Yeah. And I, where I live, I'm on a main drag. So we don't get a lot of trick or treaters because it's too much traffic. So usually I don't have to worry about that. But there's a couple of streets near me that are really popular. They're long winding roads with plenty of houses and they're just like almost tourist attractions in this area for people to go trick or treating on that. Those roads are just flooded and I think the kids get their, their fill right there. They don't even need to go to too many other houses.
5:28 Speaker 01 But back to, you know, these kids out trick or treating, you know, along their route that night, there was one house that didn't look like the residents were participating in Halloween festivities because the lights were out, but Ronald decided it couldn't hurt to knock anyway. They waited, but no one answered the door. So Jim and the kids went on to the next house. Ronald stayed behind, trying to make sure that he didn't miss it. If someone did come to the door, the wait was worth it. After all, Ronald had enough pixie sticks for all the children and even got one extra. And these weren't the small paper tubes that you might be thinking of.
6:10 Speaker 01 These were those gigantic plastic tubes, 21 inches long. This was a, a big score as far as candy went.
6:19 Speaker 02 And I don't know about you, Mike, but I haven't had a pixie stick in probably 40 years. When's the last time you had one?
6:26 Speaker 01 Oh, I can't remember. Uh, but I do remember him as a kid, you know, just pretty much straight flavored sugar.
6:35 Speaker 01 And, and I don't know if I ever had one of the big plastic tubes. I definitely remember the, the smaller cardboard tubes. Cause you would, you'd put it, you know, up to your mouth and, and the cardboard would get all kind of soggy. Even though it usually didn't take that long to get the sugar out.
6:56 Speaker 02 Yeah, I think that was the only bad part was the fact that we'd get all wet and sticky and stuff and messy. But yeah, they were pretty good scores because a lot of times people would give you a handful of them. Or if you were lucky enough, you'd get one of these big tubes. And I didn't even know if they still made them before we started researching this episode. I had to look online and see if they still sold them. Sure enough, they, they do. And for listeners that aren't familiar with them, they're just, you know, tubes filled with, as you put it, straight sugar. Looks sort of like Kool-Aid mix and kids back, at least when I was a kid, you just pour that thing right down your throat and get, get a sugar high right away.
7:34 Speaker 01 Well, you know what doesn't go out of style? Sugar. People like sugar.
7:40 Speaker 02 Yeah, kids are pretty predictable when it comes to that. Back at the O'Brien house after the trick or treating ended, there was a knock at the door. It was a neighbor, a young boy named Whitney Parker. He was wrapping up his trick or treating and Ronald dropped the extra pixie sticks that the kids had received into his bag. And Whitney headed home. The O'Brien kids didn't want to go to bed. They wanted some candy first. Ronald and his wife, Daneen, told them that they could each have one more piece of candy, but then they had to go to bed. Timothy wanted the giant pixie sticks tube, but he couldn't get it open by himself. So Ronald helped them. The powder inside was kind of stuck together. So Ronald squeezed the tube a little bit to help break it up. So it would pour out like it should, and he added it back to his son.
8:23 Speaker 02 Immediately after pouring a big swig of pixie sticks into his mouth, Timothy complained about the taste. It wasn't sweet and sugary, and it wasn't just that good type of sour you just can't get enough of. It tasted awful and it was extremely bitter. Ronald got some Kool-Aid for Timothy to try to help cancel out the nasty taste in his mouth with something sweet.
8:44 Speaker 01 It was just seconds later that Timothy started complaining about his stomach and said it was really hurting and that he didn't feel well. He raced to the bathroom where he began to vomit and soon fell to the floor unconscious and convulsing. Ronald called for an ambulance and Timothy was raced to Southmore Hospital in Pasadena, Texas. But sadly, he'd never recovered. Some reports state that Timothy died in his father's arms at home or on the way to the hospital. And other reports say it was after arriving at the hospital. Either way, Timothy died a painful and unimaginable death. The last words Timothy reportedly said
9:26 Speaker 01 were daddy, daddy, my stomach hurts. And this is horrible, Morf. I mean, there's no way around it. I mean, the loss of a child in any scenario is hard to imagine. But here you have a child who dies after, you know, eating something, some candy that they got trick or treating. You know, it does take me back to when I was younger. I remember my mom specifically talking about checking the candy. And she would do it when I was a little kid every year. Because, and I'm sure you remember it, but there was always
10:05 Speaker 01 a thought or a worry that somebody would do something to the candy, whether that would be somehow a razor blade. I remember razor blades being a big thing.
10:20 Speaker 02 Yeah, the 70s and 80s, when we were kids, especially probably was even more, you know, of that paranoia. And a lot of it was, a lot of it was inspired by this case probably. And, you know, it's frightening that you could come home with some candy, eat a piece, and wind up dying. The last thing anybody wants is that on a day that's supposed to be happy for your kids. And then this happens. But to your point with the razor blades, you know, I think that was something there were always these sort of urban legends that people would put razor blades in apples. And we used to have one house that I'd go to, and we always got candy apples from the elderly
11:01 Speaker 02 lady there that made these big batch of candy apples. They were amazing. And she only made so many. So if you didn't get there early, you didn't get one. So that was the first house everybody would go to. And we knew the family. So we weren't really worried about them putting something inside the apple. But yeah, that was, that was another common thing people worried about was razor blades and apples back then. While Timothy's family was left to deal with the shock and grief of what happened, medical authorities wanted to know what had happened to Timothy. And the result of an autopsy and medical examination was unexpected. The cause of death was ruled to be cyanide poisoning. And it was clear that it had to have been the pixie sticks tube that Timothy ate. The one that didn't taste good like candy should. But there was a big problem.
11:46 Speaker 02 The tube Timothy had eaten was one of at least five. There were at least four other tubes, one for Timothy's sister Elizabeth, one for Mark Bates, and one for Kimberly Bates, and the one that had been given out to Whitney Parker when he showed up at the O'Brien home. And these were the confirmed pixie sticks. Who knew how many could be floating around?
12:06 Speaker 01 Detectives immediately contacted other families in the area that may have received the large pixie sticks poisoned candy. They were able to recover the other four pixie sticks tubes and determined, at least as far as they knew, that there were no others out there. Luckily, none of the four other ones had been opened. Only Timothy had eaten his. Whitney Parker was actually found asleep clutching his pixie sticks after failing to get it open. Had the staple that kept it closed been easier to open for Whitney's hands? We might be talking about a second victim here. An investigation found no other poisoned pixie sticks containers
12:49 Speaker 01 had been collected by local trick or treaters. An examination of the pixie sticks revealed that all four of the remaining tubes contained cyanide. The top two inches of the actual candy powder in each tube had been dumped out and replaced with potassium cyanide. Timothy was only eight years old. The amount of cyanide he ingested would have killed two adults, according to the testimony of a pathologist. Investigators were happy to know that they had found all of the poison pixie sticks. Detective Bill Lanier told the Associated Press, "That really shook us. We got lucky getting that candy back."
13:32 Speaker 02 So if you're these detectives, you're in this community, had it be very frightening to know there could be other tubes of this poison floating around out there? And they had to scramble, put the word out, have parents check through their kids candy just to make sure that there were no other poison tubes? And these police officers, they have kids too. So it probably could have affected them as well. So they were very thorough looking for other potential poison tubes and they did a good job and weren't able to find any. So that was a good thing.
14:08 Speaker 01 Yeah, but you can imagine that it had to be kind of all out panic, right? This is a real race against time. You know, how many of these sticks are out there just waiting to be opened and ingested by, you know, another child? And it's a very scary thought. It does kind of take me back to the Tylenol poisoning a little bit. Now that was on a much larger scale, obviously. But, you know, the same.
14:42 Speaker 01 Type of thing, the same fear that, okay, how many more are out there? How many more people could potentially die? And in this case, you know, you're really focused on kids because that's who's trick or treating and who's most likely going to be eating this candy.
15:00 Speaker 02 Yeah, and a lot of times we hear the police hold something back. They don't want to release something and cause a public panic. So they, they keep it close to the vest. But in this situation, I don't think they could do that because, you know, if they delayed things by even a day, getting the word out, who knows how many kids could have eaten potentially poisoned candy. So they were sort of, you know, up against the clock with, with getting the word out. So now investigators needed to turn their attention to the source of these poisoned pixie sticks. That meant that they had to talk to the kids that had trick or treated with Timothy, which included his sister Elizabeth, the two Bates children, as well as Ronald O'Brien and Jim Bates.
15:41 Speaker 02 Jim and all the kids relayed the same story that Ronald had been the one who came over and dumped the giant pixie sticks into their bags after they had separated to knock on another door. Naturally, police grilled Ronald about which house he had gotten the candy from. Ronald said he couldn't remember exactly how he got them. According to the Austin American Statesman, Detective Bill Lanier said, at first, he kept saying, I don't know at home, then I don't know which street. They had only trick or treated on two streets and been out for only about 30 minutes due to the bad weather that night. It should have been incredibly easy to remember. Eventually Ronald changed his story and claimed that he couldn't even tell who gave him the candy because all he could see was an arm that handed the candy out the door without
16:25 Speaker 02 opening it all the way. Ronald finally settled on the house the candy supposedly came from. It was owned by a man named Courtney Melvin, who had happened to have what Detective Lanier called an ironclad alibi.
16:38 Speaker 01 Melvin had been at work and didn't get home until 11:00 PM, well after the O'Briens had finished trick or treating. He was a shift supervisor at Hobby Airport, where he had more than 200 people who could vouch for him. So it wasn't like he popped out, handed out some poison candy, and then returned so he could clock out and look innocent. Losing weight on your own can feel like a fight you keep losing. Weight loss by Hers offers access to the FDA-approved Wegovy pill and the Wegovy pen. Wegovy is the first-ever GLP-1 weight loss medication, available in a pill, and it also comes as a pen. So you've got options. With Wegovy, you can lose up to 20% of your body weight.
17:21 Speaker 01 People lost an average of 14% body weight at 64 weeks in a clinical trial of Wegovy alongside diet and exercise. To get started with Wegovy, just go to forhers.com and complete an online consultation with a licensed provider, who will determine if a prescription is appropriate. And Hers doesn't stop there. Nutrition and lifestyle guidance are part of the plan, along with access to 24/7 messaging with your care team. So support is always in reach. Ready to reach your goals? Visit forhers.com/criminology to access personalized, affordable care for weight loss, hair, menopause, and more. Individual results may vary, and stopping treatment may result in weight regain.
18:04 Speaker 01 Weight loss by Hers is not available in all 50 states. Wegovy is the registered trademark of Novo Nordisk AS. To get started and learn more, including important safety information, Wegovy clinical study information, and restrictions, visit forhers.com. Confident that Melvin had not been the one who handed out the poison candy, and suspicious of Ronald O'Brien's changing stories, they started looking closely at him. They found that he was deep in debt, about $100,000 deep, which today would be about over a half a million dollars. He had a long history of not being able to hold down a job. And at the time of Timothy's murder,
18:47 Speaker 01 he made only $150 a week, working as an optician. Ronald was so far behind on car payments that the family vehicle was said to be repossessed. Ronald had also been caught stealing at work and was about to be fired for it.
19:05 Speaker 02 Investigators also found that some of the big moves he had been making recently, things like selling the home they lived in, weren't coming close to getting him out of the red. But there was something that would have completely cleared the slate for him and his finances. The payout from a recent life insurance purchase on both of his young children would have set him up to start over. In the months before Timothy died, Ronald had taken out $10,000 life insurance policies on both Timothy and Elizabeth. But Ronald O'Brien didn't stop there. Just a month before the murder, he took out an additional $20,000 on each child. And if that wasn't enough, just days before the murder, he took out an additional $20,000 on each child. In just a span of months, Ronald had
19:49 Speaker 02 taken out $50,000 worth of policies on each of his children. If he would have been paid out for both of them dying, he would have brought in $100,000, which would be the equivalent today of $650,000.
20:02 Speaker 01 Now, a lot of people have life insurance on all of their family members, including their children. The last thing anyone wants to face at the same time as the loss of a child is an extreme debt or lack of funds to pay for final arrangements. But most of the time, insurance on children is minimal. Usually enough to cover funeral arrangements, or maybe a little extra to get you through a time of grief when you can't get back to work. But in the case of Ronald O'Brien, he took out far more in policies on his kids than an overwhelming amount of people did for their children in 1974. Heck, even today,
20:45 Speaker 01 that's no small amount of life insurance for young children. It was disturbing to investigators that Ronald had been steadily upping the amount of the policies leading up to the murder. And I've had life insurance, you know, on, on the kids. For as long as I can remember, but it's always been a fairly low amount, you know, like $10,000, I think is probably pretty normal for a lot of people because it's so cheap. And a lot of times it comes directly through your employer for many.
21:24 Speaker 01 I can't even imagine having, you know, $300,000 plus or something on my kids. Number one, you have to pay for all that. Now it's cheaper, right? Because of their age and all that, but still it just doesn't make any sense. And obviously, when you kind of look at this pattern morph of what is essentially not a long period of time, right? In the months or month leading up to the murder, upping it not once, not twice, but three times. I mean, that is extremely suspicious.
22:05 Speaker 02 Yeah, it's almost as if he was betting that something was going to happen to them. And, you know, I know some people take out like a whole life policy and it lasts the life of your child and it's very inexpensive. So some people do that and they'll take out a larger amount because then their child can carry that policy with them the rest of their life locked in at a certain rate. But short of that, to just get a regular policy and then keep upping it over a very short period of time, right before one of your kids gets murdered, that had to set off all kinds of red flags.
22:39 Speaker 01 Yeah, that's a good point. I think when you're talking about term life, which is, you know, what a lot of people take out, to have a large amount on your children, just, it just doesn't make sense.
22:52 Speaker 02 What also was disturbing to police was that they learned the fact that Ronald O'Brien was on the phone at nine in the morning on November 1st, just hours after his son was murdered, trying to figure out how to collect on the life insurance policies. Another red flag was that Ronald O'Brien had opened up all these policies without telling his wife, Danine. More often than not, especially when it comes to your kids, life insurance policies are something couples will talk about in advance.
23:18 Speaker 01 And we talk about red flags a lot, right? Because, you know, that's what people look for in cases. It's obviously what investigators look for. The fact that you would even have it in your head to call a life insurance company just hours after your child was murdered. I mean, most people listening are thinking, I'm sure that's the last thing that would be on your mind. But it seems for Ronald, that was the first, one of the first things on his mind. Big red flag.
23:57 Speaker 02 Yeah, I think most people would probably be so in mourning and so upset that they probably would forget to pay their bills and they'd have bill collectors starting to call and remind you, hey, your payments due. And here we have the opposite. He's can't get this money soon enough that he's calling as soon as the place is opening up, trying to get his hands on that money. So that's definitely doesn't sit well with, with me. And I don't think it did with the police either.
24:24 Speaker 01 Timothy O'Brien was laid to rest at Forest Park Longdale Cemetery. One of his pallbearers was Jim Bates, who had helped chaperone the kids as they went trick or treating that fateful night. He probably felt extremely fortunate that his kids were safe as he helped carry Timothy's casket. The day of Timothy's funeral, Ronald's mind was somewhere else. He was thinking about and actually talking about the life insurance money and how he would be spending it. He couldn't wait to take a vacation. At the very least, this was distasteful, but more likely this was shocking, right?
25:05 Speaker 01 To family members who were actually grieving the loss of Timothy. The day he was buried at a cemetery, it didn't set well with anyone who heard what Ronald was talking about.
25:18 Speaker 02 During a search of the O'Brien home, sugary powder residue from a Pixie Sticks tube was found on the blade of a pocket knife. Authorities also learned that Ronald had been interested in purchasing cyanide from a store in Houston, but he left without buying anything because he would have had to buy at least five pounds of it. Even before this, over the summer and just months before purchasing the life insurance policies for the kids, Ronald had been asking one of his friends who worked at a chemical company, some pretty suspicious questions about cyanide, including how much it would take to kill a human being. He had even asked one of his clients at the eyeglass store about cyanide. It was becoming clear to investigators that Ronald O'Brien alone had murdered his son,
26:01 Speaker 02 although they were never able to determine where he had bought the cyanide from. Apparently, he had kept the pre-poisoned Pixie Sticks tubes in the arm of his raincoat the whole night as they walked around trick-or-treating, which is probably why the powder in Timothy's tube had caked up and stuck together. The humidity from the misty night and the heat from his body caused the powder to clump.
26:22 Speaker 01 On November 5th, less than a week after Timothy died, his father Ronald O'Brien was arrested and charged with his murder. Due to the shocking nature of the case and because they believed the motive was financial, the state decided to pursue the death penalty. Ronald maintained his innocence and entered a plea of not guilty. Along with the murder charge, Ronald faced four counts of attempted murder for the other Pixie Sticks he tampered with and handed out. Prosecutor Mike Hinton would say at trial, "I don't want you to forget for one minute." He wanted to take those other kids with him. And another prosecutor Clyde DeWitt said, "If this doesn't justify the death penalty,
27:07 Speaker 01 then there will never be a case that does. I just can't think of a more reprehensible crime."
27:14 Speaker 02 Yeah, I tend to agree with the sentiments of both of these prosecutors. Here you have a guy for financial gain that murdered his own child and attempted to murder four other children with no second thought. And it's such a heinous crime that... Kill anyone in that manner, but when you target innocent children, one of them your own, I think this is the kind of person that the public quickly turn on when they find this stuff out and have no sympathy for you.
27:48 Speaker 01 Yeah, you're going to be universally hated when you do something like this. And I do think it's important, you know, not to forget that, yes, Timothy, his son died, but he was more than willing to kill four other children in this thing, just to get his hands on, you know, some life insurance money.
28:13 Speaker 02 Yeah, we ask the question all the time. Don't, don't people think this, these scenarios through that they carry out these plans? Because did he really not think they were going to investigate and tie these tubes of poison back to him? If he goes to prison, how's he even going to spend that money? It's almost like they don't live in reality, some of these people that we talk about, and they risk their freedom for the rest of their life, or, you know, if they're put to death, they risk their life altogether by carrying this out, thinking that they'll get something that they're never going to get their hands on it. It does, doesn't make sense.
28:51 Speaker 01 Well, I have a couple of theories on it. First of all, I don't think people are nearly as smart as they think they are. I think in their minds, they're, they're going to get away with it, but they don't really think everything through. And then I think the other thing is some people just get desperate. In his case, you know, it was all financial. You know, I'm so in debt.
29:23 Speaker 01 I've got to figure a way out of it. And, and maybe it's, it's just a mixture of all of that, right? Being desperate, not thinking through things. But still to, there's just no way, Morph, to really completely understand how someone could kill one of their own children and potentially, you know, kill four other children. I mean, there's no way to make sense of it. Bottom line.
29:54 Speaker 02 And to me, that's the frightening part where somebody crosses the line. Because a lot of people in a similar circumstance, they're going through financial troubles. I mean, there's always options. There's always, you know, they can do debt consolidation, bankruptcy. They can always start over, rebuild. But to, to decide my best option is to murder five kids to get, to get money. It just, there's no, I just can't conceive of that. It's so, so strange to think that people think like this.
30:28 Speaker 01 But I think you, you kind of hit the nail on the head. In a lot of these scenarios, there are other options. But people want to take the easy way out or what they perceive in their mind to be the easy way out. Cause it's kind of hard to say that killing one of your own children is the easy way out. But I think in his mind, it was.
30:53 Speaker 02 Despite the charges against him, Ronald O'Brien continued to maintain his innocence at trial. But the jury, made up of 10 men and two women, needed less than 50 minutes to agree that he was guilty. It took them slightly longer to unanimously recommend the death penalty. 71 minutes. The case was built largely on circumstantial evidence. But even if circumstantial, it was powerful. Danine O'Brien not only testified against her husband, Ronald, at his trial. She divorced him after he was found guilty. She remarried and her new husband legally adopted Elizabeth. Elizabeth went on to grow up and start a family of her own. Most reports state that she has tried to put this horrific incident behind her.
31:35 Speaker 02 Danine's testimony made it clear that Timothy wasn't even the one who wanted to open the Pixie Six tube. According to her, Ronald was the one who made him eat that particular candy, trying to set his plan in motion. The whole narrative that Timothy just tragically happened to want one of the poison pixie sticks was part of Ronald's lie from the beginning. Timothy actually had asked for a lollipop. According to Daneen, his father took it from him and said, no, no, you don't have time to eat a sucker. Here, try this. And he then handed him a tube of the cyanide.
32:08 Speaker 01 Less than 50 minutes to decide this guy's guilt or innocence and 71 minutes to recommend the death penalty. I mean, I let that sink in. I really think it says a lot about the case that they had against this guy, even though it was for the, you know, circumstantial. And, you know, the recommendation of the death penalty so quickly to me speaks of how heinous an act this was and how it was viewed by this jury.
32:46 Speaker 02 And I think the jury makeup itself was pretty interesting since it was 10 men and two women. You know, you might think if it was heavily, you know, a female jury, they're so protective and so fierce over protecting their kids that that might have been even worse for Ronald O'Brien. But I think the men in this case, maybe that was actually worse for him because they were so angry to see that this father who's supposed to protect his children did the unthinkable out of greed and murdered his son in cold blood. And I think that probably grabbed these male jurors, some of them probably
33:30 Speaker 02 had kids and, and they were taken aback by that.
33:35 Speaker 01 News of the arrest and eventual conviction of Ronald O'Brien shocked the community and eventually the nation. Ronald was the deacon of a local church. He was thought to be a caring family man, as a man of God and family man, and someone who should have protected his kids. It was beyond disturbing that he could plan and care. Carry out such an evil plan and take the life of his own child and do it in a way that would cause Timothy to suffer and agonizing death. Assistant District Attorney Vic Driscoll said at trial, "He sacrificed his son on the altar of greed." As the news made national headlines,
34:18 Speaker 01 people all over suddenly became hyper vigilant of the potential dangers of trick or treating. And this started the tradition of parents all over carefully examining the candy that their kids brought home after a fun night of trick or treating, something that many parents still do to this day. And that goes back to what we were kind of talking about towards the beginning of the episode. You know, I do think cases like this one and this one in particular also lead to changes in how things are packaged.
34:58 Speaker 01 You know, I'm sure candy makers took a look at their packaging and it has changed over time. You know, if you think about these big plastic pixie sticks tubes in particular, you know, we talked about a staple. You're not going to find that today. I mean, they are going to be closed up tight to prevent this type of tampering. It's very similar to what happens, you know, in the Tylenol poisoning case.
35:29 Speaker 02 If somebody had tampered with the candy, they could simply just staple it, but not having the availability to do that, having a proper seal on it makes it a lot safer for kids that are going to eat it. And I think when you're searching through your kids' bags, and I admit I'm someone that's going to search through my kids' bag because I'm going to steal Reese's now and then. If you see a candy that the wrapper just somehow came off, it's likely that it just got loose and fell off. But at the same time, you can be safe and just throw that piece of candy out.
36:01 Speaker 01 Yeah, I mean, no doubt, parents are not going to take chances. Most parents, you know, if they're going to go to the, that level of effort to look through all the candy, they're probably just going to throw away anything that is even remotely suspicious, right? Partially open, um, not completely sealed or whatever you want to say.
36:28 Speaker 02 There, there's one thing, I don't know how it was for your kids, but my kids always get open candy corn. Like they'll just be random candy corns in the bottom of the bag. And my advice is just throw those away immediately because candy corn is nasty.
36:42 Speaker 01 But yeah, I'm with you. A lot of people love candy corn. I am not in that camp. I'm not a candy corn guy. And, and I get it. You know, you might just have a ton of candy corn and you kind of just throw some in, in somebody's bag. First of all, that means you've touched it, which I'm not a fan of. And it's loose. So I, I'm with you. That's, that's probably going straight in the trash.
37:09 Speaker 02 Yeah, I always hear a lot of people love candy corn, but I've never met anyone that does. So I'm kind of skeptical on that. After sentencing, Ronald was alone. His son was dead and his wife and daughter wanted nothing to do with him. And most everyone that knew him disowned him because he had killed his own child. He was pretty universally hated by other inmates, many of whom spent every day missing their own kids. It was in prison that inmates began to call Ronald O'Brien, the Candy Man. Ronald never accepted responsibility for his son's murder and denied involvement until the end. On March 31st, 1984, after three stays of execution, 39-year-old Ronald O'Brien was executed by lethal injection. He was basically allowed to give a press conference beforehand.
37:53 Speaker 02 Multiple media outlets sent representatives to take photographs and record anything he might have to say. Some people hoped he would want to clear his conscience and apologize for what he did to his son. That never happened. Instead, he said, what is about to transpire in a few moments is wrong. He made himself up to be the victim and then added, I forgive all, and I do mean all, those who have been involved in my death.
38:19 Speaker 01 So there are a lot of things that make me angry. And obviously what these people do, right? Let's talk specifically about Ronald O'Brien, killing his own child. That makes me angry. But the other thing that makes me angry is when these people then go on to make themselves out to be a victim. I don't know why, but that infuriates me. Knowing what this guy did, what other people have done, to hear them claim to be a victim. It just sets my blood boiling. I hate it.
38:56 Speaker 02 It's not like people randomly grabbed him off the street and threw him into prison. He put himself in this position by the greed and his cold blooded attitude in plotting this plan. And obviously we know from all the life insurance policies well in advance and the talking to people, this was something he was scheming for, for quite a while. And he could have backed out at any time and he didn't. And right until the end, he wanted no part of asking for forgiveness or admitting to it. And he refused right up to the end to say, I'm sorry.
39:36 Speaker 01 The night of Ronald's execution, a large crowd of people who were angered by what he had done to his son and his lack of remorse, gathered outside of the prison in Huntsville, Texas, almost 300 people in all. They chanted trick or treat, hoping that the sound of their voices would make it to Ronald's ears. By comparison, a little fewer than three dozen anti-death penalty protesters showed up too, and apparently had candy thrown at them. Ronald Clark O'Brien was pronounced dead at 12:48 a.m. Ronald's sister-in-law told the Gainesville son that the execution brought a definite sense of relief.
40:18 Speaker 01 There was no sadness for the loss of Ronald, only for the life of little Timothy. Ronald and Timothy O'Brien were buried in different cemeteries. This was Ronald's choice. As before his execution, he arranged for his own burial plan.
40:36 Speaker 01 Dayne did not collect the life insurance policy. According to the Deseret News, she referred to it as blood money.
40:44 Speaker 02 And this is a complete contrast because here Dayne is saying, I don't want anything to do with with this life insurance money because it's blood money. And that's in stark contrast to Ronald, who murdered his own son to get money. He didn't care anything about blood money. That was not a problem for him.
41:01 Speaker 01 No, but that shows you the difference, right? In, in the two parents, one acting as how we would think someone should act. And then you have the complete opposite in Ronald, who really has no reservations, seemingly about killing his own child.
41:24 Speaker 02 At the time of Ronald O'Brien's trial, cyanide gas was one of the execution methods available. Instead, lethal injection was chosen to be the method that ended his life. At one point, O'Brien was scheduled to be the first prisoner in the state of Texas to be executed by lethal injection, though appeals and motions delayed his execution for so long that he didn't end up being the first. During that first execution, they didn't use a strong enough concentration of the drugs to make the death fast enough to be technically humane. Officials hoped they had learned from that mistake and would get the formulation right in the future. Ronald was also once scheduled to be executed on Halloween night, just as Timothy had been killed on Halloween, but that was also delayed and rescheduled.
42:09 Speaker 01 We talked a little bit about how this case really affected people all over the nation and changed their habits and thoughts regarding Halloween and the safety precautions many people take now. Former Detective Sergeant Harold Nacev told ABC News 13, Halloween will never be the same, not like it was before this happened. Ronald's appeal lawyer Marvin Teague told the Austin Statesman American that Ronald was convicted of killing Halloween. Many people close to the case do see the day differently now. Tom Campbell, who covered the trial when he was a reporter in Houston, said, to this day, I don't observe Halloween.
42:53 Speaker 01 The fear that candy will be poisoned is part of why trunk or treats have become so popular nowadays. One of the O'Briens neighbors, Linda Smedley, told the Associated Press that Timothy O'Brien used to come to her door on Halloween. And as a result of this tragedy, she said, "My kids will never go trick or treating again. I can't believe it would happen in a nice neighborhood like this one."
43:20 Speaker 02 Last year, on the 50th anniversary of this tragic murder, residents in the Pasadena, Texas area confirmed that the night of October 31st, 1974, is still very much on their minds. Resident Charles Lee told KHOU.com, "We check our kids candy. That's just what you do." When interviewed, Lee lived in the home that Brian actually decided to claim was the home he had gotten the poison candy from. Elizabeth Bagwell, who lived in the same home in 2018, said, "Someone took it upon themselves to take away the trust and fun away from a lot of parents and a lot of children."
43:57 Speaker 01 This case is, is one of them that really started the entire movement of parents checking their kids candy and really a paranoia about candy that had been laced with poisons, or as you mentioned, more if even candy apples embedded with razor blades. This paranoia was especially strong in the 1970s and 1980s. Thankfully, there have never been any documented cases where trick or treaters have been targeted by someone trying to poison them. In reality, trick or treaters are far more likely to be injured or hurt while trick or treating, perhaps struck by a car. The bottom line is for trick or treaters and
44:41 Speaker 01 their chaperones to stay safe and vigilant. And when you come home, it certainly doesn't hurt to look through their bags of candy. So Morpheus, we wrap this case up. You know, obviously, anytime you have a parent who murders their own child, it's going to be a very upsetting case. There's no way around that because, you know, a lot of people just can't fathom how anyone can do that. People can't fathom murder in general, but especially the murder of your own child. That's a tough one.
45:21 Speaker 02 Yeah, it's hard to get inside the minds of someone like Ronald O'Brien that could take this way as the resolution of his problems, take this path. You know, a lot of people go through financial hardships and what sets them apart is they don't say, I'm going to murder my kids, I'm going to murder my child to get this money and that's going to make everything better. That's a very small portion of people do that. So I think the fact someone like Ronald O'Brien could cross that line when so many other people don't proves that he's probably a psychopath.
45:59 Speaker 01 Yeah, if not a psychopath, probably most definitely a narcissist. I just think he cared about himself and nothing else and no one else. And unfortunately, we see that with a lot of killers. And maybe that's how they're able to justify what they're about to do because they really do only care about themselves. And that's, that's hard for many of us to understand because we don't operate that way. We care about other people and we especially care about our children.
46:34 Speaker 02 Yeah, people like Ronald O'Brien and Susan Smith and any number of different people that went to prison for murdering their own children, they're despised rightly so by so many people. There's not anything redeeming and there have been cases where people came to admit they were wrong, they apologized, they wish they could take it back. But right to the end, Ronald wasn't one of those people. He denied any responsibility and then blamed other people for his circumstance.
47:08 Speaker 01 Yeah, you're going to be hated. There's just no way around it when you do something like this. And, and I'm sure prison wasn't a cakewalk for him, given what he did.
47:21 Speaker 02 And now, you know, 50 years later, he's infamous for these shocking, for the shocking murder and the attempted murder of the other kids. So much so that he's spawned a nationwide protocol, pretty much of how parents go through their kids candy bags just to make sure that everything's safe. And it is kind of reassuring that there haven't really been cases like this since then. So, you know, it's, it, it put your mind at ease a little bit for your kids when they're going out trick or treating.
47:56 Speaker 01 But that's it for our case on the candy man and our Halloween episode. As always, if you love the show, but haven't done so yet, take a minute, go out, leave us a review, leave us a rating, but also definitely keep telling your friends. Word of mouth about the podcast really helps us out.
48:15 Speaker 02 If you want to find us on social media, we're on every major platform. Just search your favorites for criminology podcast. You can also go to our website, criminologypodcast.com to find news, updates and listen to old episodes. And if you want to join the discussion, head over to Facebook and search for criminology podcast discussion and fans.
48:35 Speaker 01 So that's it for another episode of criminology, but Morph and I will be back with all of you next Saturday night with a brand new episode. So until then for Mike.
48:44 Speaker 02 And Morph.
48:45 Speaker 01 We'll talk to you next week.
48:46 Speaker 02 Take care everyone and happy Halloween.
Previous Diana Robertson and Mike Riemer Next Morgan Metzer Page updated November 1, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated