===TRANSCRIPT START===

Welcome back to Scared All The Time. This is an exciting episode for us because it is almost the most wonderful time of the year. It is almost Halloween. So we're going to do an episode that celebrates some Halloween legends.

But first, how we feeling after episode one?

Pretty good, pretty good. I still hate my voice, but people seem to like the show, so I'll take it.

I'll take it too.

It's only episode two, so we're still trying to find the balance of how much we're presenting research and how much we're hanging out. We're pretty good at hanging out, getting better at research. I'm sure it'll fall into place naturally, but in the meantime, feel free to tell us what's really not working and we'll maybe consider taking it into account.

Maybe.

Maybe. Speaking of, what do we got in the mail bag? Anything good?

We've got a ton of listener feedback and enough creepy sleep paralysis stories that we're actually thinking about doing a follow up episode just to kind of touch more on those. Shout out to Joe, Samantha, Daniel, Golden, Raj and Amy for those emails. Shout out to Sean on Instagram for his sleep paralysis story.

And shout out Tona, James, Sari, Jamie and Sherry Lynn in the Facebook group. We don't know exactly where or when we're gonna be sharing all these stories, but we're working on it. So we want you to keep them coming. It's really been so rad.

If you aren't in the Facebook group or following us on Instagram and Twitter already, like what are you waiting for? Be sure to like, follow, subscribe, rate and review anywhere you get your podcasts and talk to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, wherever we're fucking around.

We're around. And I gotta say, I've been spending a lot of time in the Facebook group. It's been really popping off in there and having a good time. I let everybody know I'm a writer first and foremost. So this is really not something I'm used to doing, but so far everyone who's listened has been really awesome and I'm really excited to see how this two-way street continues because it turns out our fans are all great writers and storytellers and artists themselves.

I knew we'd have talented fans. I kept saying this.

Yeah, dude, since day one.

Speaking of which, shout out to Amber who listened to the first episode while painting and shared that with us, which is so cool. We checked out her art and it rules. There are velvet paintings and stuff like Muppets and Beetlejuice and all the crap we're into and all the ones that I wanted were already sold out. But if velvet paintings are your thing, you can check out her work on Instagram at Lowlife High Road, all one word.

Also shout out to listener Olivia Taylor Dudley and her creative partner Andrew Bowser. We just saw their movie Onyx The Fortunist and The Talisman of Souls last week. It's a horror comedy in the vein of like Ernest Scared Stupid or Pee Wee Herman. It's not like any movie you have seen this year, I can guarantee you that. Great practical effects, some incredible puppets, especially for an independent movie that raised all the money themselves. Great old school score and really funny performances. It's pretty much the perfect movie for Halloween.

And finally, as we suspected, got a lot of feedback on our tasteless depiction of Dracula's as all having suspicious red eyes. We owe Dracula's an apology. They have many different colors of eyes, from coal black to deathly white to blood red and everything in between. They are not all suspicious. We shouldn't have painted them with such a broad brush. Shout out to our cool Dracula's out there. We're listening and we are learning.

That brings us full circle. Ed, how do you feel about Halloween?

I don't love it.

Are you fucking kidding me?

This is a discussion we probably should have had before starting the show.

I did four days of research for this and now you don't like Halloween?

No, I'm aware of the work you did.

I literally, I started my little intro essay with, I suspect most of you listening to the show are kind of like us, which means you love Halloween. And now I'm finding out you don't like Halloween.

I don't get excited about dressing up. I don't get excited about going to Halloween parties. And I think part of that is as a kid, I had this thing called the croup, which is asthma, but it's not for like, anyone I think can maybe get it. I'm not sure, because I didn't have asthma as a kid. But then every like fall, my lungs would close up and stuff. And I did have to like run hot water and give me medicine and like breathe in steam and all this shit to avoid going to an ER or something. And the like triggering time for that is the fall in New England. Whatever that crisp weather is, is ideal for messing up my lungs. So what my mom did to combat that, because she was like, oh, he loves going out with his friends. He loves getting candy. Well, she would call all of our neighbors and just be like, I'm gonna take him out in the middle of the day. So I went at like 1 p.m.

Oh no.

Yeah, so it would just be me and my mom, and I'd be dressed, and I'd have my little sack for candy. And we'd go to our like neighbors at one in the afternoon. And I'd see my friends from school, like behind their moms, like laughing at me as I did trick or treat in broad daylight. Cause it was in the evenings when it got cool that like it messed me up. So I think I have more trauma from Halloween than I do great memories. It's also why I probably trick or treated a little later than other people because as my lungs developed and I got older, it became less of an issue. So I definitely was out there like probably like freshman year high school or something.

Oh, okay. All right.

But I love all the stuff around Halloween. I love people decorating. I love fall. I love spooky stuff.

Got it.

And being from New England where like most of your field trips were to a cemetery as a kid.

Yeah.

Oh, do a charcoal.

An etching over a grave.

Yeah. So like that was a lot of like middle school and elementary school field trips. So like, yeah, I had a lot of that witch trial-y shit around me and I liked it, but just the Halloween itself, I don't care.

Great. All right. Well, then I will edit my opening piece to state, I suspect most of you listening to the show are kind of like me, meaning you love Halloween. It is the best time of year. Everything seems to slow down in the fall. The trees start to glow orange and yellow. The sun hangs closer to the horizon, making the days feel a little strange even in California. There's no end to the haunted houses, movie marathons and creepy costumes. It's the one time a year I allow myself to indulge in nostalgia and embrace the childlike sensations of wonder and fear that takes hold as we draw closer to Halloween itself. Something about the smell of dead leaves and the sight of grinning skeletons peering out from the crooked windows of a musty Victorian house. The sound of creaking, rotting floorboards. It sparks something deep down in me the way that Santa does for most people. I love the feeling that maybe the veil between our world and the next is growing thin, that maybe this will be the year I see a ghost in the moonlight or hear the howl of a strange creature on the wind. But that's all just because for most of us, Halloween is safe. There isn't really anything out to get you, or is there? This week, we're gonna take a look at the truth surrounding a legend that pops up around every Halloween. A legend that cuts to the core of what we fear most about the holiday. That our treats might be tricks, and those tricks might be deadly. So Ed, you ready to hate Halloween a little bit more?

I mean, is that possible?

Let's go! What are we?

Scared.

When are we?

Now it is time for.

Scared All The Time. We're celebrating Halloween week with a look at a fear that never dies. The fear of booby-trapped Halloween candy. Whether poison or razor blades or glass or nails, the idea that some madman is trying to kill people with deadly candy is an effective and terrifying proposition. So much so that a term was coined for it. Halloween sadism. But we'll get to the origin of that term a little bit later. There are a thousand flavors of this myth. And it's scary because it's an unexpected attack on innocence at its core. I mean, I think it's sort of like almost everyone's accidentally drank a glass of orange juice and they thought it was gonna be milk because they weren't paying attention or something.

Oh, that happened to me. I came down as a kid and I saw it. I don't know if I had poured something already or if I'm just a lunatic who saw a cup and decided this is mine now. But I came down one morning, I'm talking like a little kid, and I saw like brown liquid in a cup and I thought it was soda, but it was prune juice. And I like took a huge gulp and I'm like, oh hell yeah, Pepsi or whatever. And it was fucking disgusting. And I spit it out everywhere like a cartoon character. And my mom came in the room and she was so mad at the mess I made. Like this is on you, don't leave out prune juice, looking like Pepsi.

So these legends are kind of like that, except imagine the dark liquid was gasoline and instead of spitting it out, you died.

I don't know, do you die?

From drinking gasoline?

I feel like I've watched my dad and uncles like siphon cars a billion times, not on the streets getting gas, but like for work that they were doing. And you'd always get a bunch in their mouth and they spit it right before it all starts coming out.

Sure, my point is that these booby-trapped candy legends prey on that fear. I think one of the things I wanted to get off the top is that there are a couple different versions of this story. We're gonna focus on poison candy and razor blade apples, but these stories have blossomed out into people giving out weed gummies on Halloween to kids, people giving out meth hidden in candy to kids, people putting LSD on temporary tattoos that they give to kids. Most of these stories have very little basis in reality, but they are deeply frightening because of the unexpected nature of something horrible happening during something that should be joyous and celebratory, even if a little bit spooky and scary.

Hey, do any kids get hurt in this episode?

No, no, the kids, no, the kids are fine.

Then how come Mr. D'slamer's calling?

Just don't answer it, it's fine.

We have to answer it.

No, we don't.

We always have to answer it.

We have to answer it if it's the president. Yeah, loop.

Go ahead.

This episode features discussions of child harm and murder, no matter what Chris says. Chris will say anything to get Ed to do an episode.

Alrighty, thanks for your call. You said there was gonna be nothing.

Just a little harm and murder, just to keep things spicy. So with that being said, yes, let's kick off by talking about razors and apples. Ed, your theory on why that's the worst idea.

I think it's dumb because who the fuck wants an apple? Like you're literally, this whole evening for a child is like, I'm going out and I'm getting candy. Something that is most families, it's restrictive, where it's like, oh, you can have, don't spoil your dinner. But this is the one night a year where you're allowed to just have a lot of candy. Don't get me wrong, when I got home, my parents were like, don't get out of hand with eating the candy on night one. But it is just something where you're like, fuck the food pyramid. Tonight's about Reese's and fucking candy bars and stuff. I wanna know how many kids dodged a bullet by just throwing that apple into the fucking woods. Because they were like, oh, an apple, fuck you, lady. And then they probably told other kids, like, don't go to 1138 Elm. They fucking give out apples like losers.

First of all, no kid should be eating fruits or vegetables on Halloween night.

Or period. I really didn't. Well, there's a lot of olive oil.

Have you had a honey crisp apple ever? Honey crisp apples are fucking good.

Kristen Shaw got me into cotton candy grapes and they're amazing. I don't know if you've had them, but they're fucking grapes that taste like cotton candy and they're so good. Apples are tough because it's like, you do anything to them, I'm not interested anymore and on their own, you gotta be an apple.

What do you mean you do anything to them?

Like a candied apple.

Oh, okay.

I mean like worse than a razor blade. It'll break all your teeth out of your head. Yeah, either caramel or the red candied apple, which it's like, hey, did you ever wanna, I don't know, guard an apple with a wall of Jolly Rancher?

Like if you can get past this, no teeth are storming this castle.

No, you end up, like you end up in a bite with it, you actually get through it. It's like it completely fucks your life up.

Yeah.

Like if you threw a candied apple at someone, you can probably knock them out.

Yeah, true.

Who's that for?

A very daredevil type child.

Yeah, we're gonna get into this, and now that I'm just, you know, I'm rizzled off the top of my head here, like candied apples, fucking trash. Bobbing for apples is, I mentioned this last time, one of the grossest things in the fucking planet.

Yeah, all that spit, all your, I mean, especially in the past when people were like.

Did you ever do it?

No, I've.

I did it in a classroom.

Yeah, I was gonna say maybe in like second or third grade.

Yeah, that's exactly right. When I was in like elementary school, we'd have Halloween parties in the classroom and it always included bobbing for apples.

Yeah, and all your spit and all your like gross kid mouth shit is getting in that water.

You're not doing that in the age of COVID.

No, no, you certainly aren't. Yeah, so I mean, here's the good thing about razor blade apples. It's unlikely that anyone has ever actually tried to hurt a child that way. And while there are reports of razor blades in apples that stretch back to 1967, there's no one specific incident. There's no kid or now grown person walking around out there going, oh yeah, I was normal until I ate a razor blade from an apple on Halloween and now my tongue looks like a fucking snake. That's never happened as far as anyone knows. The stories that started to warn about hidden razor blades in apples started in 1967 on the east coast of the US and as well as Ottawa and Toronto, strangely.

Sure, also I think east coast.

Yes, so something, some meme type legend started in the late 60s that spread and people were so frightened by the idea that New Jersey actually passed a law just before Halloween 1968 that mandated prison terms for anyone caught booby trapping apples, which I think seems kind of redundant because it seems like you'd get prosecuted for that anyway, unless New Jersey had some like a loophole around if you booby trapped food, you could skate.

I don't know, I'm for it. I'm for legislation, however unnecessary or like unacted upon.

Sure, I mean, I looked, I tried to find, I wanted to see if I could read some funny quotes from this law and I could not find it.

Well, as you know, if you Google my name, before you get to me, you get to another Ed Voccola who poisoned the water supply.

You always say that, you always say it was a different Ed Voccola, but I don't know that anyone's actually ever.

It's time stamped. You can see, it's like, I was a kid, like it was no way, or even before. If there's a couple Ed Voccolas that come up before me that are fucking grisly, but that said, I'm the good one, I'm the nice one.

Yeah, Ed Voccola on Mike, this is the angel Ed Voccola.

Well, that's also probably goes to show that like, I'm for legislation stopping other Ed Voccolas, you know, doing things. Other Ed Voccolas, they hate legislation like that because they want to poison water supplies and do stuff like that.

Here's the bad news. Some of those other Ed Voccolas were not stopped by these laws because the following year, 13 incidents of razor blades and apples were reported just in New Jersey alone.

Oh my God, they didn't, they were brash. They didn't care.

They didn't care. They said, you passed a law to stop me? No, I'm gonna hurt a kid anyway. But the thing about all this is that, you know, I think an important disclaimer for a lot of the stories that we're gonna be talking about for the rest of this episode, it's so hard to ascertain exactly how some of this stuff went down because the news reports and the police reports are often being filed by panicking parents who have heard of these stories.

Yeah, I am very much in that camp where I'm like, anybody who's like, I got a razor blade with an apple or I got X, Y, and Z, they just fucking did it and they said this happened. As I do genuinely believe in the good of humanity, it's harder by the day to say this, but I think I'm a big social contract guy. I believe we sign a social contract. That like food courts, oftentimes they're on the first floor of a mall. Second floor of the mall has got all sorts of stores. You can look down in the food court. I do believe that we don't turn on the news every night and see that someone's been throwing bowling balls down and the people eating bread bowls or whatever, because we do sign a social contract that we're gonna walk through this earth and try not to do stupid shit like that. Especially when kids are involved. I think people aren't out there potentially doing this, but I do see people being stupid on a micro level of being like, look at this thing and lie about it.

Yeah, I think especially when it involves eight, 10, 12 year olds.

Well now, are you aware of, are you familiar with, do you remember a bunch of years ago, there was a Pokemon animated series issue where kids in Japan were having epileptic seizures because of...

Yeah, that was the story. And I know they put an epileptic warning on Pokemon.

Yeah, so the thing is, what they discovered, I believe, what I had read in the past, is that a massive percentage of that, when they looked into it, was just kids getting excited by other kids and then hearing about this thing that could happen. Then they talked to their friends at school and it was like, I felt a little dizzy too, maybe. And then they tell their parents and the parents call the school board and then how often times, no matter what country you're in, parents start calling fucking organizations. And next thing you know, it's like 89% of kids in Japan had an epileptic episode during Pokemon. But the reality was, it was just like this weird mass hysteria and kids wanting to feel included with their friends.

Yes, exactly. And I think that's kind of the case here, is that most of this stuff is kids fucking around or getting scared over something that they heard on the schoolyard, so to speak. But not everything in this world falls into that space. There is a history, believe it or not, of poison candy and even weirder things that happened on Halloween. And I think the history of it is really interesting. Because at first, these fears about the dangers of food weren't even connected to Halloween.

God, I feel like I am a living example of the dangers of food and it has nothing to do with razor blades. I'm just like, man, I gotta diet, man.

Yeah, I gotta put the pizzas down.

I know I was talking shit on candied apples earlier, but I gotta stop eating four of those a week, dude.

Is that the problem? Is it candied apples? I don't think it is.

No, if anything, I wouldn't have a problem if it was candied apples because then the food I want has a protective wall that I would give up on.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you can't not to it.

No, I have very easily edible food.

But a lot of these panics started during the industrial revolution when food production moved from inside the home to outside the home. And suddenly kids and adults were consuming food made by people that they didn't know. And I mean, before the industrial revolution, you didn't make everything in the home, but there was a guy in town who made a lot of, you know, breads or your dairy farm or whoever. Like you kind of knew where your food was coming from. But during the industrial revolution, that changed completely and food started being made in other countries, on the other side of the world, using machines and techniques that everyday people weren't even necessarily familiar with how any of this worked.

And food, you know how many spider legs are like allowed into our food through the FDA? I don't know the number, but there is a number where it's like.

A 16 ounce box of spaghetti can contain 450 insect parts and nine rodent hairs. Would you like to hear more filthy food facts?

I get it. You can't get all the spider legs out of shit. This is not possible.

There's gonna be an element of rats or spider legs.

But it is weird that they're like, you get in a bunch of blueberries, you find like a fucking fly wing in there. We actually have a percentage of fly wings we're allowed to send you. Yeah.

I love there's a viral internet story about a guy who found a tree frog in a head of lettuce, which is anyone who knows me knows I love tree frogs.

So for you, that's your Cracker Jack prize.

Oh my God. If I found a tree frog in my food, I would build him such a beautiful little enclosure and we'd be best friends forever.

You ever watch that video of the guy who built the like 3D printed the enclosure for the frog?

Yes, it hangs on his little post.

Yeah.

It's so cute. But back to the scary stuff, because frogs are beautiful and not scary at all. So as food became foreign, there was a sudden uptick in reports of kids getting sick and dying from eating candy. On Wikipedia, and I know Wikipedia is not always the best source, but Wikipedia says that some doctors at the time claim that they were treating kids being poisoned by candy nearly every day, which seems insane.

Do you have a year on that?

No, I don't. I don't, but during this time period, you know, in the middle and towards the end of the Industrial Revolution, as these things change, that's the time period. I don't know, I don't have an exact date.

I bet you it's probably right in that era of we're moving candy production offshore, because now you've got guys who had soda pop shops being like, you know, I hear the candy you get from fucking Indonesia, it's filled with rat bones.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's gonna kill ya.

To bring people back to their soda pop shops.

So none of these reports ever seem to have been substantiated, except for one, in 1858.

1858.

1858.

So you're saying none of them seem substantiated up until, so like, is my soda pop story completely not accurate? Like you're talking like, during the Civil War production went offshore?

I don't know exactly when candy, I mean, I know that, I mean, I grew up in Hershey, Pennsylvania, and I know Milton Hershey was making his candies in Pennsylvania.

Hell yeah he was, like a patriot.

Although that would have been post, I don't know exactly when his factory started, but.

Oh, he built the town during the Great Depression, right?

He bolted up the town during the Great Depression, but he started in the early 1900s, I wanna say.

Okay, handful of kisses and a drink.

Anyway, the first major case of mass poisoning of children through candy happened in 1858.

It better not be the last case, or else I don't know how far the show goes.

Well, what happened was, there was a man named William Hartaker, who was colloquially known as Humbug Billy. Humbug Billy sounds capable of a lot worse than poisoning candy.

I don't know, Humbug Billy just kinda sounds like he's not into these holidays. That's your traditional screwed situation.

Sure, he operated a market stall, and this was in the UK, this wasn't in the States, but he operated a market in Bradford, Yorkshire, England, where he sold his candy. One of his most popular items was a liquorice treat called Humbugs that he bought from a local candy maker named Joseph Neal. Now, when this was happening in 19th century England, sugar was a really expensive luxury item. So Joseph Neal, the candy maker who sold the Humbugs, would substitute sugar with something called DAF, which is a very British thing to call your substitute, which was a white, tasteless, odorless gypsum powder made from limestone sulfate, which in and of itself sounds poisonous.

It's this treaty candy, like it's cocaine. Hey man, this is good candy. It's only been stepped on like twice.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We only put a half ounce of Borax per piece.

Yeah, it's just like, God, are you fucking seriously? You're stepping on this candy, dude?

But here's what happened. And this was around Halloween, although to be fair, I don't know, in October, 1858, I don't know what Halloween was looking like in the UK, but.

Is Halloween popular in the UK now? I feel like America loves Halloween more than anyone else.

I don't know. That's a good question.

That's right. And any UK listeners.

Let us know what Halloween is like.

Is it popping off over there? Or did Bah Humbug fuck it up for everybody?

Halloween in the UK dates back to the.

No, we don't want it from you. We want it from our UK listeners.

In October, 1858, this guy, Joseph Neal, the candy maker, bought his daff from a local druggist named Charles Hodgson. But Hodgson fucked up and confused his gypsum powder with another white powder that he had, arsenic.

No.

So 12 pounds of arsenic was incorporated into the 40 pounds of peppermint humbugs that Joseph Neal made and sold to Humbug Billy to sell to children right around Halloween.

That's like almost a quarter arsenic.

That's actually more than a quarter arsenic.

Thanks. Sorry for raising my voice back there, trivia button.

So Hardiker, notice that the candy has been-

I'm sorry, is it pronounced murderer now?

Yeah, William Murderer, Humbug.

Oh, so Hardiker is Humbug.

William Hardiker is Humbug Billy.

Yeah, which is weird that he gets the nickname because he didn't even make the candy.

No, but I assume that when this happened, he was the guy who sold it and killed people.

So honestly, like, I don't know, it kind of seems like he's a fall guy a little bit.

He's a victim of the supply chain.

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Yeah, like now that we're sitting here, I think we should start a second podcast to harden this.

It's like cereal for Humbug Billy.

We gotta bring justice to the Humbug family, if at all possible.

Here's where he fucked up though. Humbug Billy did notice that the candy he received from his supplier had an unusual color. He was a little worried about it, but he still sold five pounds of it at his market. Each Humbug that he sold contained an estimated 600 milligrams of arsenic. The lethal dose is around 100 to 300 milligrams of arsenic.

I will say, if it's anything like buying edibles, sometimes it's like, oh, it's 10 milligrams of THC or whatever, and you're like, maybe the sheet is supposed to be that way, but I definitely got some fucking shit that it all rolled to one side of the corner and that's what I'm eating right now. So there's definitely some kids who got like 80% arsenic.

Yeah, so Humbug Billy was responsible for 200 people getting sick and 21 people dying from his arsenic-laced candies. I don't have too much information about the court case or anything that resulted from it, but it is, as far as I could find, the earliest case of a Halloween or an October candy poisoning case.

If I'm Humbug, some constable's knocking on my door, you gotta be like, if I'm going to prison, then the guy who made it's gotta go to the gallows.

Yeah, yeah.

Cause it's like, I'm just a guy who sold admittedly off-colored candy.

I would love to know what color it was supposed to be and what color it was.

It's supposed to be like brown and it's just ash and gray. And he's like, I don't know, move it. Cause whatever is named Charles or whoever, his return policy is take it or leave it.

Yeah.

So you've got to move this candy.

Well yeah, Charles Hodgson is the one who made the mistake and confused his gypsum powder with arsenic, which I feel like if you're a drugist, that's a jailable offense. Your job is to know the difference between arsenic and gypsum powder.

I will say that it was an interesting time where the drugist literally also owned the candy store. And this is not exclusive to him. I mean, that's what like soda pop shops were. Like when you watch old movies, it is like I'm going there to get Tylenol, but also a bit of honey.

Oh, it's a bit of honey. I've never had this.

Oh, a bit of honey is a disgusting old candy. Some people probably love it. Everyone knows my favorite candies are Good and Plenty Idaho Spuds and a thing called Sea Howard Violets. So like I'm no one to talk, but yeah, a bit of honey is trash.

My favorite candy is Haribo in case anyone wants to send us a care package.

At some point we'll be providing a PO box for candy.

You monsters aren't gonna get our home addresses anytime soon.

And I hope by the end of this episode, you won't get the idea to send all those candy with razor blades in it.

Yeah, we're gonna check all of it. So it took about a hundred years for there to be another Halloween specific food tampering case. It happened in California in 1959. And that Halloween, a Californian dentist named William Shine distributed 450 laxative laced candies to children, 30 of whom fell ill.

Wait, so a dentist.

A dentist.

Who's presumably taken some form of the Hippocratic Oath because he's in the medical field.

Yeah, I guess.

So he decided, you know what? I am gonna do harm.

He did.

And it's to kids' asses?

I think, I think.

Which I guess in this case, laxative is the best version of that sentence.

Yeah.

Wait, also, so to a hundred years apart, two Billy's, two Williams.

True. William Shine also could have been a Humbug Billy, but he probably didn't know about the other girls. Oh, I don't know.

I kind of love the idea that there is a lineage there where it is just like, I'm the grandson of Humbug Billy.

Yeah.

And he got fucked over because Charles walked free.

Yeah.

You know, my grandpa got boned. So now I'm gonna, for some reason, do this too. I don't know where that goes, but.

Humbug Billy Shine fell far short of killing 21 people or making 200 people sick. He only managed to get 30 people sick and was later charged with outrage of public decency and an unlawful dispensing of drugs.

That's California for you. They didn't have any laws until like four years ago. Now, it does make you wonder, what is the motivation? If anything, you want kids out there slamming their teeth into candied apples so that you get more business as Humbug DDS, but instead he was like, let's turn them off from getting more candy. It seems like a bad business plan.

There wasn't too much information about why William Shine did this. There was a little bit of information about the next high profile case that made headlines regarding what would become known as Halloween sadism. In 1964, a 47-year-old mother from Green Lawn, New York named Helen File handed out bags of treats that contained arsenic-laced ant traps, metal mesh scrubbing pads and dog biscuits.

You didn't mention a single candy.

No, there was no poison candy in this, although the reason that it became a high profile case is because of the arsenic-laced ant traps.

But I think it should have been a high profile case even if there was no arsenic. It was just like woman hands out ant traps on Halloween.

Well, that wouldn't be a case, I mean, I don't know that's what we...

Well, I guess, yeah, right. It wouldn't be a case, but it should make the news to, if no other reason, shame this woman.

Yeah, well, she was shamed. It made the news. It made the New York Times. And it seemed like she did this because she was frustrated about kids who were too old to be trick or treating, and she wanted to give them tricks. And I don't disagree with that logic.

Hey, as a person who was forced into old age fucking trick or treating, we don't know those kids' story. We don't know why they're out there at 22.

That's true. We don't, I mean, if there was a 22 year old who came trick or treating alone to her house, she legally can pull a gun on them, I think.

Yeah, I think it's true. I mean, depending on what state. I think if you're not in Texas, you have to pull an ant trap.

Yeah, you know, I don't totally blame Helen File for this. I don't know if she gave these arsenic ant traps to kids.

I guess I have more questions. Who is the arsenic for? Is it for the kids, or is it for like, this is an extra effective ant trap?

No, I think it was just sort of like, oh, you wanna be an 18-year-old trick-or-treating? Here's some stuff maybe you need for your dorm room? I'm not sure.

You know, what kind of a SUNY purchase? I'm sorry, you have an ant problem, I heard. What year was this?

This was 1964.

So, 64, giving out ant traps. Yeah, I guess, I don't know, I guess it's a vibe. I don't know. And it's weird that until 1964, arsenic's still super gettable. I feel like 100 years earlier, you accidentally, you know, clumsy professor a bunch of arsenic, but in 1964, I feel like you gotta look for arsenic.

And how do you know how gettable arsenic is? Have you been trying to get some?

No, I'm saying the fact that by 1964, you can still get a bunch to use. I feel like if I Googled get arsenic right now, I'm not sure what my options are without some sort of, oh, I need it for a science experiment.

Well, this is built into ant traps, you know, it's not like, I don't think she bought the arsenic separately. So it would be like, if you handed out like, raid to kids under the tree.

Well, so now I'm triply confused. So she didn't lace ant traps with arsenic?

I think they were ant traps that had arsenic in them already.

So like old ant traps, she got a deal on old ant traps.

It was 1964, I think that's just what ant traps were.

Okay, well, I feel like this woman, I'm not even sure why she's in trouble then.

I mean, I think it's because by this point in the 60s, these stories were starting to spread. And the reason that I know that is because in 1974, a writer named Richard Trubo published an article in something called PTA Magazine, which sounds like the worst magazine of all time. And he coined a term for these bizarre pranks. He called it Halloween sadism, which is a totally chill name and not at all something that's gonna cause panic.

Well, here's the thing. It was in Poison Toddlers and Adults Magazine. So it's actually, that should be the cover story.

That's true. He should be publishing this constantly. But anyway, this 1964 thing with Helen Fowle, it wasn't like a one-off incident. There were already some of these stories circulating enough that 10 years later, Dicky Trubo published this article. That same year, one of the most infamous cases involving poison candy on Halloween happened, which was in Pasadena, Texas. An eight-year-old kid named Timothy O'Brien died after eating a pixie stick laced with cyanide. And the investigation revealed that he had actually received the candy from his father, Ronald, who had taken out a life insurance policy on Timothy. And Ronald had tried to give, or had given these poison pixie sticks to three or four other kids, none of whom ate them. But his plan was a bunch of kids would eat these pixie sticks and it would kind of cover that he had killed his own kid for money.

But this situation, this case, is exactly what I imagine all of these stories are, which is like at the heart of any of this, and we touched on it earlier, is it's just people doing it themselves. Because again, I do believe as a society, we sign a social contract. For all the reasons we'll get into later, Halloween is this fucked up evening where kids are supposed to feel safe and adults are supposed to get drunk. And it's as simple as that. And I do think that that's like a sanctity thing where people do adhere to that. And so the idea that someone's gonna come out and say, my kid's got poisoned pixie sticks from Halloween as an alibi, like that fits entirely into my theory, which is like he'll do that in his own home and hope that that works as an alibi. But I think in general, people aren't poisoning pixie sticks.

Right, in general, I don't think they are. He did give those poisoned pixie sticks to other children in hopes. Yeah, he gave them to three or four other kids.

In hopes that like it strengthens his alibi.

Yes, that somebody was handing these out.

Well, I never said the guy was an idiot. No. I guess, fuck, I guess that's residual, collateral damage to his plan.

Some of those other kids he gave the pixie sticks to might have been some of his other children, but that seems like that would have been a bad idea.

What is, well also, how many kids from, how many different people does he have? Like, we got kids who were banging on his door, but they're also his children? I'm going to dad's house. I heard he's giving out king-size pixie sticks.

Okay, here we go. October 31st, 74, O'Brien took his two children, trick or treating, and passed it into Texas. O'Brien's neighbor and his two children accompanied them. After visiting a home where the occupant failed to answer the door, the children grew impatient and ran ahead to the next home while O'Brien stayed behind. He eventually caught up with the group and produced five 21-inch pixie sticks, which he would later claim he was given from the occupant of the house that had not answered the door.

Those are fucking huge pixie sticks.

21-inch, yeah, I mean, everyone lies about the size of their pixie stick, but 21-inch is...

That's questionable.

That's, yeah, you would know. That's a big fish story. But at the end of the evening, O'Brien gave each of his neighbor's two children a pixie stick and one each to his own kids, Timothy and Elizabeth. And then upon returning home, he gave a fifth pixie stick to a 10-year-old boy who he recognized from church.

Okay, so the recognized from church kid, to me, that does this guy in, I would believe if he was like, why did you give the two to the neighbors? It was just as simple as like, they saw me with these fucking massive pixie sticks and who am I to be like, no, these are ours. And then I can buy him being like, I kinda had to do it to save face. But the fact that he rolled down a window being like, hey Jimmy, Jimmy from fucking pew number three at church, I got a huge pixie stick for you.

It's 21 inches.

21 strong inches of pixie sugar. That to me does him in as like a fucking monster.

Yeah, he did get the nickname the Candy Man and the Man Who Killed Halloween and he was executed.

Executed for his crimes?

For his crimes, yeah.

Wow.

And this was Texas.

Yeah, Texas, they might have been keeping that alive a lot longer, well, keeping killing alive a lot longer.

And he did in court, he maintained his innocence and his defense was the urban legend that there must have been a mad poisoner who was handing this stuff out.

If I was the opposing attorney, I would say, sir, how many houses did you go to on this night? And they'd be like, we went to 40 houses. How many of them gave you five of something?

Five of the biggest Pixie Sticks produced by the Pixie Stick Company.

Yeah, if anything, if you're hanging out with these huge Pixie Sticks that had no official Pixie Stick markings on them, that were just novelty straws that they taped both ends of.

Filled with cyanide and sugar.

Yeah, I don't know if someone's like, hey, take like six of these off my hands. That's ridiculous. No one's given out six king size anything to just one guy.

God, he was so fucked when he went to court. He pled not guilty. During the trial, a chemist who knew O'Brien testified that in summer 73, O'Brien contacted him asking about cyanide and how much would be fatal. A different chemical supply salesman also testified that O'Brien had asked him how to purchase cyanide. And friends and coworkers testified that in the months before Timothy's death, O'Brien showed a quote, unusual interest in cyanide and spoke about how much it would take to kill a person.

I will say worse now if it's all like emails, but the fact that you're memorable enough in the 1960s and 70s where it's like, oh, yeah, I do remember this one guy ever calling, calling like KL555 to be like, hey, just, you know, I'm doing a school project. How much, as we call it in the business, air quotes, pixie dust, would we need to like drop a 60 pound kid or whatever? And it was like, yeah, I do remember that being a weird call. So I like, I clocked that.

He way overdid it. He, when they tested these pixie sticks, he had more pixie sticks for them to test. Well, they found that all five of the pixie sticks had been opened with the top two inches of the 21 inch stick refilled with cyanide and resealed with the staple. And according to the pathologist, the candy consumed by Timothy contained enough cyanide to kill two adults, while the other four that went uneaten contained enough to kill three to four adults.

You don't want to pop a shake on that. You don't want to like put the top two inches and shake it to mix it in so that people immediately taste it. Like, that's the worst pixie stick I've ever had.

I mean, this is really sad, but as soon as the kid tasted the candy, he complained that it was bitter.

Well, that's what I'm saying because he didn't pop a shake.

Yeah, no, I know.

You gotta shake, you gotta mix it up. You don't just pour in the top two inches like a rub.

His sister-in-law and brother-in-law testified that on the day of his kid's funeral, he spoke of using the money from Timothy's insurance policy to take a long vacation and buy other items. Even if you're totally innocent of your kid's poisoning that you're collecting life insurance from, I feel like you should not on the day of the funeral if you want to avoid suspicion. You're not going in there being like, you know, I'm going to Hawaii now. I mean, it sucks that he's dead, but at least I can finally take that trip I've always wanted to take and buy all this shit.

You're wearing a lot of pixie stick-themed jewelry, where it's like, oh yeah, I got this like collector's pixie stick watch made by Bugari or whatever. Oh dude, I think you did this.

So it only took the jury 71 minutes to sentence him to death by electrocution.

And honestly, like that first hour could have been like when lunch came. It's an 11 minute deal. It sounds like he did get official pixie stick packaging. He said he stapled it again. So pixie stick was out there making massive candy.

I'm actually kind of surprised that this didn't lead to like, you know how when things get associated with a crime or something, like a lot of times they go out of business or it's like bad PR. Pixie sticks, I feel like when we were kids at least, still super popular.

It never didn't feel like eating chalk. It's like doing a cinnamon challenge where like your throat did close up if you like slammed on a pixie stick. But no, they're delightful.

Damn dude, during his execution, a crowd of 300 demonstrators gathered outside the prison to cheer and some yelled trick or treat.

That's amazing.

During the execution, which is pretty, I mean, goddamn, that's cold. I mean, he deserves it, but that's fucking cold.

They're looking for something to do. I watch a lot of schlock horror movies and every horror movie where it's like, oh, 30 people came to this lethal injection or this fucking electrocution. It's always like a curtain opens and there's 30 people.

Yeah, they weren't inside watching it.

But still, I just mean like there was a time when that was like, what are you doing Saturday? We're gonna go watch an execution. It was definitely, it seemed like certain places people had that on the ye olde to-do list.

This guy's a fucking scumbag, get this. His last words, he didn't say anything about killing his own kid. He said, these were his last words. After eating a last meal that really pushes the boundaries of how much you should be allowed to order.

Did he say it pushes the boundaries or that's your commentary?

That's my commentary. I am fully against the death penalty in all instances.

I am not against it in all instances. If they have like footage.

This guy's pretty close, like killing your own kid in cold blood for money is close to the worst thing you could do.

I just mean like I'm forward if it's not circumstantial. If it's like we have video of you stabbing someone in the face, it's like, all right, adios.

We're not supposed to get political. I am uncomfortable with the idea that the state executes anyone.

Okay, sure.

My main point by this is this guy ordered a fucking cheesecake factory worth of a last meal. He ordered a T-bone steak, French fries and ketchup, whole curdled corn, sweet peas, lettuce and tomato salad with egg and French dressing, iced tea sweetener, saltines, Boston cream pie and rolls.

I tell you what, you know how you get them back is you just put arsenic and all of that. There's so much food here.

His last words, I won't read this whole thing.

His last words were, is there arsenic in this?

No, his last words were just saying that this is wrong, that he's being killed. He forgives anyone who's taking part in any way in his death. And he apologized to anyone he offended during his 39 years, just as he forgives anyone who offended him in any way. He never mentions that, like, I feel really bad about murdering my kid for money. He just goes off on, this is really unfortunate that we ended up in this position somehow.

How would he see this going? It's like, hey, man, about four days before you killed your kids.

You called every chemical supply store in the state asking for enough cyanide to kill between four and five children.

Look, I love my kid. I don't want him to end up an invalid. I want him to end up dead. And then also with that, I'm going to go on a Hawaiian trip by a couple of novelty watches. And he's surprised he got fucking found out.

Yeah. This guy sucks.

Ronald McDonald.

Rot in hell, Ronald O'Brien.

Get out of here, you garbage person. Unless you know your kids or grandkids are fans of the show, in which case, you know, he kind of got a bum rap.

Yeah. Wait, no, no, he didn't get a bum rap. Still fuck him. We like that you listen, but your grandfather is a piece of shit.

I guess that's true. Sorry.

Okay. So this case in 1974 happened almost simultaneously with when Richard Trubo published the PTA magazine article that coined all of this Halloween sadism. Since 1985, though, a writer named Joel Best has been researching and rebutting all the panics that have sprung up around these rumors. Now if you Google Joel Best, his author photo is him ripping out of a life sized Hershey bar with a really insane smile on his face. And I don't trust him at all. So we can keep an eye on Joel Best too. Hold on. I don't know if you're gonna be able to see this, Ed. This is what Joel Best looks like murdering a Hershey bar from the inside, bursting out from it like a larva.

He's in some sort of Hershey sleeping bag that he's unzipped. And it was like, hey, I know you thought this was a Hershey bar, but much like the material I write, it's not what you thought.

Yeah, he has done the research and I don't have the most up to date data. He hasn't updated his website in a while.

Oh, no, I bet.

He's busy impregnating and bursting chest-burster style out of candy bars.

I don't think he's asked to impregnate them. I don't want to give away like how media works. I think he just zips himself up. And it was like, take photo when I come out of this.

Between 1958 and 2012, he only managed to identify 92 incidents of Halloween sadism.

Any more than one. I guess it's a lot.

Right. But even though he hasn't detailed the story behind each of these incidents, he does emphasize that the stories are rare and almost never result even in injury, much less death. I couldn't find whether or not he was including stories like we talked about with the razor blade apples, whether these were stories that seemed like the kids were possibly doing it for attention from their parents or whatever. And here's what I want to talk about next. Joel Best has done a really good job. I feel like almost every Halloween he comes out and talks about, you know, how these panics, whether it's weed gummies or meth in the candy or razor blades in the candy, it's mostly rumor and lore.

We'll get into this in a future episode for people I'm sure will be excited to for some reason be excited to hear. But you know, I grew up with the Warrens, the famous Warrens. And that's how I spent my Halloween's was going to Warren show. I don't know who's going to fucking Gerard Best, whatever his name is.

Joel.

Joel Best show. That's a that's a worse use of your time.

I don't. Yeah. I mean, maybe he's going around to elementary schools and telling kids that it's cool. Don't worry about it.

Just bursting out of Hershey packaging, being like, what up, kids?

Looking at his the chart on his website from 58 to 2012, most years are between zero incidents and like two or three incidents. There's a couple of pops 1970 and 71 have 10 and 14 incidents respectively.

I will say I have to look this up. But like the 70s was a grizzly time. Like Times Square was its grossest. I think Son of Sam was in the 70s.

A lot of serial killers.

I think the like Atlanta Child Murders was in the 70s. It just seems like whatever planet causes nonsense retrograde bullshit, I don't know what you believe in. But like I'd be interested to see what astrologist nonsense was going on.

Well yeah, I mean, there was a run. So 64 was three, 65 was one, 66 is five, 67 is four, 68 is three, 69 is seven, and then 10 and 14 and 70 and 71, and then it plummets back down to one or two a year. Until this one I think is interesting, 1982 stands out as having 12 incidents, but 1982 was also the year that there was the Tylenol poisoning, which was a big case. It's the reason that there's tamper-proof seals on all medicine and food now.

Oh wow.

He was going around and injecting poisons into Tylenol.

The thing that shows that it's closed and unopened?

Yeah, that it's closed and unopened.

You mean that extra metallic thing that you also unpeel?

Definitely the metallic thing. I don't know when the childproof caps.

Yeah, because childproof wouldn't change being able to puncture it with a...

But definitely the sealed packaging wasn't a thing.

So pills were just raw dog in this air prior to that.

Yeah. So in 82, it kind of makes sense because that was already a fear that things at the store were being poisoned. So that doesn't super surprise me. And the rest of it is zeros and ones the whole way up to 2012. So here's the thing. There have been a number of stories reported in local news about things found in candy, especially in recent years, that is more than just scare, that reaches the level of somebody actually reporting on somebody finding something terrible in their Halloween candy.

So I have this kind of idea that so much of local news is like it can happen to you news. It's like, oh, you can get pushed in front of a subway. Don't go to New York City. You can whatever, blah, blah, blah, blah. By that virtue, Halloween must be the fucking Super Bowl for local news, because it's just like, oh, man, this is one of these times a year where like everyone's going to listen. This could happen to you.

Well, that's how these stories of I found a razor blade. I found needles. I found that's how these all spread because it's so easy. If you are panicked and someone at the news, either you call them or they catch wind of it. Yeah, they're going to run it. There's a number of these and I don't know exactly what to make of them because all we have is the reporting on the incident. Not necessarily how the incident went down and usually it's just being reported by a parent who says my kid found this. With that being said, Ed, would you like to hear about some of the horrible fucked up things that people have found in their Halloween candy for real?

I would because I actually just broke into the bag of Halloween candy we got for when kids come here and I'm eating it right now. So this is a perfect time.

Great. All right. So this is an article on foodbeast.com. The seven most dangerous things that people have found in their candy. Number one. Well, I guess these aren't really numbered. It's just seven of them. So, listener, we leave it to you to decide the order of danger, the ranking of danger. A needle in a Snickers bar. According to the Sun Journal in Auburn, Maine, a man found a sewing needle in a fun size Snicker bar that one of his kids received over the weekend. And the man who found it said that outside of Urban Legends, he thought that this had never actually happened. Now, I will say, this is from November 2nd, 2014, the Sun Journal in Maine. When you click the link, the article is not found. So, I can't give you any more information other than what Foodbeast tells us on that one. But apparently, there was a needle in the candy bar. Now, again, Joel Best has documented some of these things. And I don't have his numbers for 2014 because they cut off in 2012. But there is this pattern of people who have bitten into things but didn't receive medical treatment. There was no real injury. There was just, Ouch! What was that? Oh, a needle.

I feel like it's crazy enough, though, that like people probably would go to the local news. I don't know how many people are biting into needles and just keeping it to themselves.

Well, so this next one is a bigger question. This next one is meth.

How do you even fucking know? How do you decipher that the meth is in it?

According to Foodbeast...

The meth experts Foodbeast?

According to the Contra Costa Times in Hercules, California, an eight-year-old girl found a bag of 0.1 grams of crystal meth in her Halloween candy bag.

You know how when you get those bags that have official Halloween markings on them and they're just called, it says Halloween. Was it in one of those or was it just a baggie of methamphetamines?

So again, when you click the link, the link is dead.

Wow. Okay.

I suspect that these stories may have been published and pulled down upon further review.

It's all bullshit.

Turns out her dad maybe got arrested for making meth or her neighbor did.

I think it's amazing if you do travel around with drugs that are all in like official Halloween marked bags. And that way if you get pulled over or whatever, it's like, what do you got here, sir? It's like, I don't know. We just got it trick or treating. And it was like, this is this is methamphetamines. He's like, that's fucked up. Sir, you should take that off, sir. Like, that's definitely not mine.

Number three, razor blades. Back to the goddamn razor blade.

I should pop into this for a second here. I was doing restoration on a house with my dad last year. And it seems like razor blades had a real fucking heyday in the past. Where like now, I don't know about you, I don't shave with a razor blade. I just like trim my beard or whatever.

Yeah, but these razor blades aren't even the kind that you shave with. These are like box cutter razor blades.

Yeah, but I think that was in razor blades. Prior to the modern day razor blade, it was just like you put a box cutter razor blade and you like twist it into the top of a razor.

Into a shaving razor.

Shaving razor, yeah. And the reason I feel like this is 100% the case is there used to be in bathrooms a slot in the wall for used razor blades. And then when my dad and I were storing this house, we broke down the wall between the bathroom and the kitchen between the two studs were just like three feet of razor blades, the box cutter style razor blades that over the years from like the 20s on. Yeah, so in the bathroom, it had a slot in the like tiling that said used razor blades or just razor blades or whatever. And you know, since the 20s, or how this house was built or prior, when they would use up razor blades which are there were dull or no longer sharp, they would just put them in the wall in that slot, which turns out just lands between the like studs in a fucking wall. And so yeah, there was just a ton of razor blades. And then I've since noticed at some very old apartments of friends of mine here in LA that they have those slots. And I'm like, well, I know it's in the wall there. And so I do think there was a time when razor blades were just like, everyone had a ton of them.

That's true. Okay, this link actually loads. This is again from 2014. In Maiden, North Carolina, parents in the North Carolina town of Maiden claimed to have found a razor blade partially embedded in Halloween candy. WSRC TV reports that the child was not hurt, but police are taking the matter seriously. Officers said the parents were checking their children's Halloween candy when they found a small metallic blade inside the wrapper of a Twix mini candy bar.

This is a question for you and it might be for later, I don't know, but I'll just bring it up now. What did you trick or treat with? Did you have like a fucking pillowcase?

No, I never, it's funny. I never used a pillowcase and it wasn't until later in life that I-

You're too good, you're too good for pillowcases.

No, I just never realized that people used pillowcases.

I only did pillowcases.

I wanna say I always used like one of those plastic pumpkins.

You can't get enough candy in that.

I don't know, man.

That's the first part of the question. The second part of the question is, did your parents do anything? My parents never checked for anything. They were just like, don't eat too much out of the pillowcase.

Yeah, no, I mean, my parents weirdly have become the kind of people, like I grew up in the woods, it wasn't very busy. And I remember when I was young, my parents took us trick or treating, and then my last year was probably seventh grade.

Your parents were taking you trick or treating through into middle school?

No, no, no, no, no, my parents, I'm saying my parents took me trick or treating up until fourth or fifth grade, and then sixth, seventh grade, I went on my own.

I feel like that was probably similar to me.

But I don't think they ever were checking my candy or concerned about anything.

Yeah, my parents are more concerned about asthma attacks.

Well, yeah, you had the pilgrim disease.

It's not a pill, I don't know, I think it still exists, croup. It's out there, baby.

Yeah, there was never any real concern. I remember there was one house, an older woman who lived in the neighborhood who didn't give out candy, but she would invite kids in to have apple cider and cookies.

No, that's a fucking red flag, dude. That's the apple giver, that's the like-

I know.

Stick with the program. You give out mini or king size treats, and we keep moving.

She was always chill, she was really nice.

No one said she wasn't nice, and no one's saying that doing something a little different isn't potentially great. I'm just saying, don't put yourself in a position to be like, avoid that house.

But my parents know, were never particularly concerned. Continuing the Foodbeast article, shard of glass. In Buffalo, New York, police received a complaint of glass found inside a Tootsie Pop. The woman found the glass while celebrating beggars night with her children, which is-

I'm sorry, what night?

Beggars night?

That's what they call Halloween. Honestly, that's an apt description of it, but it is weird.

According to the article, it is quote, some kind of East Coast thing, which is the same as Trick or Treat.

I am from the East Coast.

We both are. And I don't think either of us have ever heard of beggars night. Well, so unsurprisingly, when you click the news link on this one, it's another 404 page not found.

God, Tootsie Pop lobbyists were like, we gotta get this glass talk out of here.

Number four, bullets.

Just bullets in candy?

According to KFOR, an Ohio woman found bullets inside four boxes of her son's milk duds. Each box contained three bullets for a 20 caliber handgun. And worst of all, the candy was distributed by the kids preschool.

A lot of supply chain questions here.

A lot of supply chain questions. Okay, when you click this link, it opens. Peebles, Ohio.

Peebles.

A mother in Ohio.

You're disgusted by the name of that town.

Peebles.

Yeah, it should be called Bullets, Ohio, based on this story.

A mother in Peebles, Ohio says she thought it was safe. When her son's preschool handed out little bags of candy to the students, Chrissy Campbell said her four-year-old son, Landon, opened a box of Milk Duds and asked, what's this? Campbell said she took the box from him and started going through the other Milk Duds boxes in the bags. I opened the second box. More bullets. I opened up the third box. More bullets. I opened up the fourth box. More bullets. I'm like, that's not a coincidence. That's not a mistake, she said.

Honestly though, in today's dollars, Bullets to Milk Duds, she's making out like a bandit.

True, put these up on eBay. Campbell was furious because the boxes of ammunition came from her son's preschool. I just want answers. I want to know why it was in my kid's street bag. I want to know who did it. Chief Robert Music with the People's Police Department.

How does this spell music?

Like music.

Oh my God, what an amazing lineage.

Bobby Music with the People's Police Department says, detectives are investigating the case and the prosecutor's office will determine if any charges are filed. All right, so that one at least wasn't taken down.

So there were bullets then? There's nobody who said this is bullet shades. It's still up on the web.

There were definitely bullets, yeah. Unclear where they came from. The next one on Food Beasts is nails and staples.

Sure.

In Spokane, Washington, a woman found several metal objects inside the candy her children picked up on Halloween. Her son and a friend were munching on the candy and the friend bit into a nail. The nail poked him but didn't cause major harm. As they searched through the rest of the candy, several pieces had nails, staples and watch parts inside.

Wow, like gears and stuff.

Yes. Well, and this link also is still up. I've been a parent for 15 years. I've never had this happen before. This was the third or fourth time you were like, my kids found watch parts in their candy.

I can build a Rolex at this point from discarded watch parts. Yeah, that's something to be concerned about. But the fact that you were like, listen, I've been sending these little rascals out every Halloween and they've never come back with weird gears. I think that's the normal that you want. If it happens once, then just, you know, I guess put it under your pillow for the fucking gear theory to come around. Other than that, like, yeah, just be grateful that every other year was not filled with nails.

Yeah, so then the last one on this list, who gives a fuck wedding ring, which we're not gonna cover. It's just some lady accidentally dropped her wedding ring inside a kid's Halloween bag, but that's not-

So it wasn't like they bit into a Mars bar.

No, she just dropped it in a bag. Although, I do think the writer of this article might have some trauma because they said, on the surface, a wedding ring doesn't sound like a dangerous thing to find in your candy bag, but I'd argue marriage can be dangerous.

Wow, it says that.

Yeah.

That's a level of commentary we don't need in our someone found a wedding ring, okay.

And then the only other one, this isn't in that article, but according to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, incident in 2000 happened, and this actually resulted in a criminal charge. A 49-year-old man named James Joseph Smith was charged with one count of adulterating a substance with intent to cause death, harm or illness after it was determined he put needles into a Snickers bar, he handed them out to children on Halloween. A 14-year-old was pricked by a needle, but did not require medical attention. So other people have done this, it seems rare, and it seems not particularly dangerous or deadly.

If you get in trouble for it, if you're like, oh, we've established that the Snickers came from this street, this house, what have you, like you're being a piece of shit, and people should be able to beat you up a little bit.

Yeah, I think this is exactly the kind of thing. James J. Smith, 40, and I was charged with felony adulteration, which means to make something impure. Apparently it's something you can get charged with in Minneapolis. But he was found incompetent for trial.

Oh, what?

And was committed to an institution as mentally ill.

I don't know, well, we can't beat that guy up at all. But yeah, he should be found a little nuts. I'd be interested to find what kind of composition notebooks with crazy shit are written in his house.

For sure, yeah. I mean, I don't think he was a well person.

Yeah, most people aren't doing this. Unless you're found incompetent, you're found to be a lunatic, I think most people wanna keep Halloween pretty cool.

All right, so we've covered a lot of Halloween fears on this episode. Let's get into the fear tier. Where are we placing Halloween sadism on the fear tier?

I'm gonna go ahead and put it real low, like a wrong one, because A, I don't go trick or treating anymore, so I'm not worried about it. B, I do believe that 99% of any of this shit, it's either used as an alibi for someone trying to kill their family, or it's like kids are trying to excite their friends and being like, I got band-aids and my Reese's, and then the kids tell their parents and it's like, oh fuck, should we not let their kids go out? It's a little bit like mass hysteria, meme-ish bullshit. I just feel like because it is a day that seems kind of sacred and it's similar to Christmas in that way. I think most people, 99.9% of people are not trying to hurt anyone on that day. Look how many 404s we have, just going through that list of the seven craziest. I think a lot of this shit's retracted after they come out with it, because it's like, oh it wasn't, it was just someone trying to get attention. And it's getting harder every year for kids to be kids. So to have a day where kids can be kids, I just feel like people aren't trying to fuck that up.

Agreed, very low on the fear tier. If this episode teaches anyone anything, truly, obviously, take your own personal safety and your children's safety seriously. But always, especially around Halloween, when you hear these urban legends and rumors, you hear stories about anything dangerous or bad happening, do the research, take it with a grain of salt. You are most likely perfectly safe. Of all nights of the year, don't step on your kid's ability to have fun on Halloween. It's really cool. It's a great holiday. And yeah, be not afraid. So yeah, that's our show. Thank you for joining us for episode two. Our biggest fear this week is waiting to see if our numbers go up or down for how many people are listening.

We have bigger fears than that.

We do have bigger fears. Well, yeah, let us know if you have any good Halloween stories. If you have proof that something bad did happen on Halloween, we'd love to hear about it.

Not that we'd love to hear about it. We're sorry that you have that proof.

Sorry that that happened. But also if you have your own urban legends from your town.

And let us know especially if a different Ed Voccola poisoned the water supply in your town.

Yeah, if your local boogeyman, instead of being called Cropsey, was called Ed Voccola because he was poisoning the water supply. We definitely want to hear from you.

We want to know more about the other Ed Voccolas who really eat up the prime real estate in Google search results.

Yeah. So go open a candy bar. Go watch your favorite Halloween movie. I'm Chris Cullari.

And I'm Ed Voccola.

And this has been Scared All The Time. We'll see you next week.

Scared All The Time is co-produced and written by Chris Cullari and Ed Voccola.

Edited by Ed Voccola.

Additional support and keeper of sanity, Tess Fifle.

Our theme is the track Scared by Perpetual Stew.

And Mr. Disclaimer is a ****.

No part of this show can be reproduced anywhere without permission. Copyright Astonishing Legends Productions.

Good night.

We are in this together.

Together.

===TRANSCRIPT END===