The Despicable Crimes of "Candy Man" Killer Ronald O'Bryan

Children are cautioned from an early age not to accept candy from strangers. While this golden rule is strictly enforced by vigilant parents throughout the year, on Halloween night, they throw caution to the wind and allow their little ones to go door-to-door asking for treats. In most instances, their request is granted without worry. Even so, once in a while, the monsters that lurk in the shadows take advantage of the occasion, resulting in dire consequences for the most innocent among us.

In 1974, a boy in Pasadena, Texas, fell victim to just such a predator when he became violently ill after indulging in a treat from his Halloween bag. Ever the concerned parent, his father had stayed by his side during the hour-long ordeal, offering comfort to the youngster as he convulsed on the bathroom floor.

Only eight years old at the time, Timothy O' Bryan died later that night on his way to the hospital. In a shocking turn of events, an autopsy revealed that he had ingested enough potassium cyanide to kill two grown men.

As hard as it was to believe, all signs pointed to the fact that someone had deliberately laced candy with the colorless compound before randomly handing it out to unsuspecting children. Investigators were convinced that a cold-blooded killer was hiding somewhere in the suburbs of Houston, and they intended to find him.

With no suspects in mind and scant evidence to go on, detectives believed they were looking for an unscrupulous individual who, angry at the world in general, had decided to take the life of a complete stranger - a child no less - as a way of getting back at society.

To make a difficult situation even worse, there was no telling how many children had received the tainted sweets. Although authorities had put out an emergency news bulletin requesting that all Halloween candy be brought to the police station for inspection, they feared that there would be other victims before all was said and done.

While they faced an uphill battle to be sure, investigators did have a few things working in their favor. For one, it had been raining heavily on the evening of Trick or Treat, which had limited the number of houses that Timothy and his sister Elizabeth had visited. More importantly, a chemical analysis of the contents of the boy's treat bag had enabled them to pinpoint the carrier of the poison. Lab tests revealed that the killer's lethal weapon of choice had been the sweet and sour powder contained inside of a straw-shaped Pixy Stix.

After meeting with the residents of the houses where the O'Bryan children were known to have gotten candy, detectives were confident that none of them had given out Pixy Stix. However, during the course of their interviews, they learned that someone had been witnessed doling out that particular treat and that someone had been Timothy's father, Ronald O'Bryan.

When he was brought in for questioning, O'Bryan claimed that a man he had never seen before had emerged from a darkened home and given him several Pixy Stix to hand out on his behalf. He added that, after consuming a small amount of the sugary powder, Timothy had complained that it tasted funny. Instead of telling him to throw it out, he had given his son a soft drink to help wash it down. Under the pretense of helping police solve the case, he had readily provided them with the address of the house where the exchange had taken place.

Upon speaking with the mystery man, who turned out to be an air traffic controller named Courtney Melvin, officers learned that he had an alibi for the night in question. According to him, he had been at work and had not returned home until well after midnight.

When they visited his place of employment, his supervisor confirmed his story and had the paperwork to prove it. In a stunning show of support, two hundred of Melvin's coworkers came forward to vouch for his character. Realizing that they had been duped, investigators quickly concluded that this man was not their killer, something that Ronald O'Bryan had known all along.

A bit of digging into his past uncovered that Ronald O'Bryan, who had trained as an optician, was not nearly as respectable as he wanted others to believe. A malcontent who couldn't hold a job, he was drowning in a sea of debt. Not above taking what he wanted, he had been accused of stealing on numerous occasions, usually by former employers.

While being shiftless and prone to theft doesn't necessarily mean that someone is capable of murder, the fact that O'Bryan had taken out hefty life insurance policies, not one but three, on his children in the months prior to his son's untimely death moved him to the top of the list of suspects.

Authorities learned that the amount of coverage that he had requested had been so extravagant that the insurance rep had balked at drawing up the policies. After some cajoling, the agent had reluctantly conceded. Rotten to the core, O'Bryan had walked out of the office a happy man. With all of the pieces falling into place just as he had hoped, he would soon be out of debt and ready to start over with a clean slate. Apparently, the high price that his children would pay to ensure his future hadn't troubled him in the least.

After making the decision to sacrifice one or both of his offspring, O'Bryan had added cyanide to several Pixy Stix before handing them out, not only to Timothy and his sister, but also to three other trick-or-treaters. With no moral compass to speak of, he figured that the poisoning of youngsters to whom he had no blood ties would help divert suspicions elsewhere.

Another nail in O'Bryan's self-constructed coffin came when it was discovered that he had phoned the insurance company on the morning after his son's death inquiring about a payout. As the eight-year-old's body lay in the icy morgue, his father's only concern had been how quickly the money he had coming would change hands.

On November 5, 1974, less than a week after Timothy was poisoned, Ronald O'Bryan was taken into custody and formally charged with one count of murder and four counts of attempted murder. To no one's surprise, he pleaded not guilty across the board. He would steadfastly maintain his innocence throughout the trial, despite the damning evidence against him.

During the proceedings, a parade of witnesses testified that O'Bryan had become fixated on the properties of cyanide in the months leading up to his son's murder. His obsession led him to brazenly ask friends and family alike if they knew where he could purchase the deadly poison. He would also inquire of them if they had any idea how much of the substance it would take to kill a person.

In June of 1975, eight months after little Timothy O'Bryan had been laid to rest, his father was convicted of his murder. He was also found guilty in the attempted poisonings of the other four children, none of whom had ingested the lethal powder.

For his crimes, Ronald O'Bryan, whom the press had dubbed the "Candy Man," was condemned to the electric chair. Down the road, as alternative methods of execution were introduced, his punishment was amended to a more humane death by lethal injection.

It had taken the jury just over an hour to decide the fate of the man who had so callously plotted and carried out the murder of someone who had trusted him implicitly. Once the verdict was in, the waiting game began. As it happened, nine years would pass —more time than Timothy had spent on this Earth —before his killer would face final justice.

During his time on death row, O'Bryan was reviled by his fellow inmates who, despite their own misdeeds, considered him to be lower than a snake's belly. Their hatred for the child killer ran so deep that they had thrown a party on the day of his demise to let him know that he would not be missed.

After several stays of execution, O'Bryan was put to death on March 31, 1984, at the age of thirty-nine. When asked if he had any last words, he had taken the opportunity to rail against the system that had allowed him to come to such an end. When his death was announced over the loudspeaker, hundreds of people who had gathered outside the prison to celebrate the occasion had shouted "Trick or Treat" while throwing handfuls of candy in the air in remembrance of Timothy, a young boy who had paid the ultimate price for his father's greed.

Resources:

·murderpedia.com

·texasarchive.org

·statesman.com

·jclass.umd.edu

·historythings.com