DEER PARK, TX – By 2024 checking your children’s Halloween candy is a must for many parents. In 1974, checking candy wasn’t a concern until an 8-year-old Deer Park boy died from a tainted Pixie Stix.
“The case has stuck with me ever since,” said Houstonian John Ditmars.
Ditmars was 11 years old and living in southeast Houston when news reports warned parents to check their children’s candy that Halloween.
“Mom made us throw away our candy, which my brother and I went out later that night and got out of the garbage,” said Ditmars.
That night made such an impact on Ditmars he started collecting all the information he could on the case to possibly write a book. The subject is Ronald Clark O’Bryan, also known as ‘The Candyman’ and ‘The Man Who Killed Halloween.’
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“It was just unbelievable what O’Bryan did,” said Ditmars.
In 1974 O’Bryan was accused of giving his son, Timothy, his daughter and three other children Pixie Stix laced with cyanide. Police said O’Bryan was in massive debt and, unbeknownst to his wife, had taken out insurance policies on his children less than a month before Tim’s murder. Ditmars said O’Bryan specifically told the insurance agent not to mention the policies to his wife.
Ditmars said on Halloween night O’Bryan’s son asked for a piece of candy before bedtime and was given the tainted Pixie Stix. Ditmars said when the boy complained of a bitter taste, O’Bryan gave him Kool-Aid to wash out the flavor.
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Ditmars said O’Bryan was then likely on his way to his daughter’s room when his son started profusely vomiting. O’Bryan called for an ambulance and Timothy died at the hospital. None of the other children ate their Pixie Stix.
An autopsy determined Timothy was given enough cyanide to kill three adults.
“Then all hell broke loose that this kid was actually poisoned,” said Ditmars.
O’Bryan claimed to have gotten the tainted candy from a neighborhood house while trick-or-treating with the children. Police became suspicious when O’Bryan took them to the house where he claimed to have gotten the candy.
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“Police are stunned that they’re not having to restrain (O’Bryan). I mean, here’s a guy that just killed your kid, so to speak, and you’re not going after him like most fathers would,” said Ditmars.
Police then quickly learned the man who lived in that house was working at Hobby Airport on Halloween; an alibi backed by numerous witnesses.
Police then learned of the secret insurance policies and heard from multiple co-workers and friends O’Bryan had been asking questions about where to buy cyanide and how much it would take to kill a person.
O’Bryan had trouble holding down a job, lived beyond his means, was in massive debt and planned to cash in on the insurance money. Police said O’Bryan gave the tainted candy to other children to make the crime appear random.
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O’Bryan never admitted guilt but was convicted and sentenced to death.
“I believe he was such a narcissist that he believed he was going to get off. He made the mistake of taking the stand in his own defense,” said Ditmars.
During closing arguments, Harris County prosecutor Vic Driscoll told jurors, “O’Bryan did not have the truth in him, even when the truth would do him better. He has used his friends, his family and his church. He sacrificed his only son, not on the altar of God as Abraham might have done, but on the altar of his own greed.”
Ditmars said he spoke to the prison chaplain who met with O’Bryan, and who recounted a particular phone call between the death row inmate and his father.
“He called his father up and said, ‘Dad, don’t worry about the job you’ve done with me. You’ve done a good job. I know I’m going to heaven,’” Ditmars said the chaplain told him. “It creeped out the chaplain.”
Ditmars said the other inmates on death row had such disdain for O’Bryan they petitioned the warden, and were given permission to have a celebration when he was executed.
O’Bryan was executed in March 1984.
Ditmars said 1974 was the last year he ever went trick-or-treating. He remembers Halloween in the Houston area in 1975 as being unusually quiet.
“It was dead, nobody went trick or treating. There were no parties, nothing. Nobody was going around trick or treating,” said Ditmars. “We didn’t even buy candy because nobody stopped by the house.”
