Kids, teens, and adults celebrate Halloween all across the United States every year, and have been for many years. For most, Halloween presents a fun night to go and see friends or trick or treat. However, Halloween night doesn’t always go as planned.
1. The “Candy Man.”
On Halloween night in 1974, a man named Ronald O’Bryan, soon to be known as the “Candy Man,” gave out five pixie sticks filled with cyanide, two of which he gave to his own two children, in order to benefit from a new life insurance policy. The only death involved his eight-year-old son, Timothy O’Bryan. Timothy had asked for the candy first and reacted almost immediately; family friends reported him saying, “it’s bitter” and “it doesn’t taste right.” Timothy died within an hour of eating the candy. The rest of the children, hearing how it tasted, decided not to eat theirs. According to Abc13, a jury found Ronald O’Bryan guilty for his son’s death a year later and sentenced him to death by lethal injection. This story encouraged parents to start checking their kids’ candy and started myths about razor blades found in Halloween candy.
2. The Liske Family
Sixteen-year-old Deavon Griffan returned home from a sleepover on Halloween night in 2010 to find his brother Derek Griffin, mother Susan Liske, and stepfather William Liske murdered. Police soon suspected William Liske’s son, also named William, as the murderer; he had past trouble with the law and had been reported to be schizophrenic. William Jr. had beaten his older stepbrother Derek Griffin with a hammer, shot his father William five times, and shot his stepmother Susan Liske. According to insider.com, William pleaded guilty to all three charges. Later in 2015, officials found him dead in his jail cell from a self-inflicted wound.
3. Throwing Eggs
Throwing eggs at someone’s house or car on Halloween night can be seen as an annoying but harmless prank. However, on Halloween night in 1988, it cost twenty-one-year-old Karl Jackson his life. While driving to pick up his girlfriend’s son from a kid’s Halloween party, teenagers started egging Jackson’s car. Jackson got out of his car to confront the teenagers, which soon turned into an argument. After a few minutes, Jackson sat back down in the passenger seat of the car, getting ready to leave, when teenager Curtis Sterling pulled out a gun and shot Jackson in the head, killing him instantly. The NY Times has reported many deaths on Halloween night, starting from seemingly harmless pranks.
4. The “Tool Box Killers”
Late Halloween night in 1977, sixteen-year-old Shirley Ledford hitchhiked home from her friend’s Halloween party when two men picked her up in an old van. Little did she know, the world knew these men, named Lawrence Bittaker and Roy Norris, as serial killers famous for picking up female hitchhikers and torturing them with tools usually found in a toolbox. The “Tool box Killers” not only tortured women, but also recorded themselves taunting the women while torturing and slowly killing them. After torturing Ledford, they dropped her body off in a stranger’s yard. After five murders, according to insider.com, a friend of Norris and Bittaker turned them in. The Jury sentenced Bittaker to death; however, he died in 2019 due to natural causes. Norris, who cooperated in the investigation, got sentenced to 45 to life.
5. Unsolved
Ronald Sisman, 39, and his girlfriend Elizabeth Platzman, 19, spent the night together on Halloween when they heard a knock on the door. They initially ignored it, but as the knocking soon turned into banging on the door, Sisman decided to open the door, finding a group of masked individuals. The masked individuals beat and shot Sisman and his girlfriend at close range. Medium.com said the killers destroyed the house, but nothing seemed to be missing. With little to no evidence of the killers’ identities, the police soon gave up on the case, which remains unsolved.
Halloween can be a scary holiday for most, but that doesn’t mean everyone should not have fun. It just means people should try to be safe and make sure they make the right decisions. Hitchhiking home will never be a good idea; instead, call someone to come and get you. Be careful if someone decides to be that annoying person and egg someone’s house or car; make sure you know who you're pranking and that they will also see it as a harmless prank. Lastly, make sure to have fun this Halloween, even with it being different this year.
留言