Halloween Candy Killer Was Father

Stories about strangers killing children with tampered Halloween candy remain an urban myth, with no substantiated case of a child dying or suffering serious injury from a contaminated treat collected while trick-or-treating. In Pasadena, Texas, in 1974, an 8-year-old boy named Timothy O'Bryan died after eating cyanide-laced candy given to him by his father, who had taken out a life insurance policy on him. A court convicted and executed the father for murder, exposing the death as a family killing rather than a random Halloween poisoning.

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