Tainted Candy: A Mini-Essay

     The insidious lunatic who perniciously tampers with children's candy has, over the course of the past few decades, become an image inseparable from Halloween. Each year, newscasters and parental groups repeatedly warn the public about the dangers of treats laced with drugs, apples packed with razor blades, and popcorn balls peppered with ground glass. Their concerns and proactive efforts are well intended, especially in a world of rising violence; however, many have come to question what this image is doing to the holiday itself. As Michael Taft emphasizes, "Halloween acts as a commentary on community continuity and cohesiveness."[1] For the scholar, the event possesses a distinct communal quality. Across the country (and within other nations which celebrate some variation of Halloween), members of the community decorate their homes and businesses and welcome costume-clad strangers with treats and toys. While the festivities of other holidays center around family and friends, Halloween engages the entire community and creates, as Lesley Pratt Bannatyne argues, a civic event.[2] Because of the trust involved in this communal process, it's easy to understand why such fears would emerge: parents and children depend on the honesty of those doling out free candy and those providing treats rely on the integrity of masked patrons visiting their homes and businesses. It is this type of faith which distinguishes the holiday from many others and, according to scholars such as Bannatyne and Taft, makes Halloween a collective affair. Likewise, it is this trust - and the vulnerability it presents to everyone involved - which allows space for fears to develop. It goes without saying that, with the rise in mass shootings and random acts of cruelty, the world is becoming more crazed, but is there any truth behind the Halloween sadist? Within the past thirty years, serious academic scholarship has examined this image, its impact upon the holiday, and its legitimacy. 
     In 1973, Editor and Publisher reviewed the results of multiple newspapers' attempts to trace the origins of the Halloween sadist and discovered that all of the tales were hoaxes by children or parents to mask other unrelated crimes.[3] The first major academic study occurred in 1985 by sociologists Joel Best and Gerald Horiuchi at California State University. Examining media reports of the Halloween sadist between 1958 and 1983, the scholars discovered that not a single death or serious injury occurred during this timeframe. The insidious lunatic, Best and Horiuchi conclude, is an urban legend over-exaggerated by the press and appearing in mass media during the 1970s.[4] In 2002, Nicholas Rogers arrived at the same conclusion. At the time of his work's publication, only two deaths had occurred on the holiday and, although both were attributed to the Halloween sadist, their validity was quickly dismantled: in 1970, five-year-old Kevin Tostan died after eating candy laced with heroin and police investigation later discovered that the tale had been fabricated by his uncle who had left the drug within reach of the child; in 1974, eight-year-old Timothy O'Bryan died of cyanide poison after eating a tainted Pixy Stix which was later identified as being poisoned by his own father who had recently purchased hefty life insurance policies on Timothy and his sister.[5] Despite widespread news coverage which revealed that the perpetrators of both incidents used the myth as a smokescreen, the two cases only added fodder for the public's concerns. So, if the sadist never existed and growing issues with violence have helped foster fears, what has all of this done to Halloween? Brian Sutton-Smith echoes Bannatyne and Taft regarding the holiday's communal qualities and he laments how the sadist image is slowly chipping away at the civic event that is Halloween, with several towns banning trick-or-treating and/or outlawing haunted attractions and themed displays. Written thirty-four years ago, his sentiments still hold strong today: "These holiday celebrations are our final resting place for trust and security. We cannot give them up and close our door, turn out our lights and snuff out the candles. The heart and future of our nation depends on their continuance."[6] 

Works Referenced

Bannatyne, Lesley. Halloween: An American Holiday, and American History. Gretna, LA: Pelican Publishing Company, Inc., 1990.

Best, Joel and Gerald Horiuchi. "The Razor Blade in the Apple: The Social Construction of Urban Legends." Social Problems 32.5 (1985): 488-499.

Roger, Nicholas. Halloween: From Pagan Ritual to Party Night. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.

Sutton-Smith, Brian. "What Happened to Halloween." Parents Magazine 58 (1983): 65.

Taft, Michael. "Adult Halloween Celebrations on the Canadian Prairie." Halloween and Other Festivals of Death and Life. Ed. Jack Santino. Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee Press, 1994. 152-169.

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[1] Taft, 164.
[2] Bannatyne, 124. 
[3] Bannatyne, 146.
[4] Best and Horiuchi, 492-494. 
[5] Roger, 90-94.
[6] Sutton-Smith, 65.