In this episode, the boys discuss razor blade apples, the Man Who Killed Halloween, and the history of "Halloween Sadism."
Visit our show notes for links and references.
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[00:00:29] Welcome back to 'Scared All The Time.'
[00:00:32] This is an exciting episode for us because it is almost the most wonderful time of the
[00:00:36] year, it is almost Halloween.
[00:00:38] So, we're going to do an episode that celebrates some Halloween legends, but first, how we
[00:00:43] feel in that episode one.
[00:00:44] Pretty good.
[00:00:45] Pretty good.
[00:00:46] I still hate my voice, but people seem to like the show, so I'll take it.
[00:00:49] I'll take it too.
[00:00:50] It's only episode two, so we're still trying to find the balance of how much we're presenting
[00:00:53] research and how much we're hanging out.
[00:00:55] We're pretty good at hanging out, getting better at research.
[00:00:58] I'm sure it'll fall into place naturally, but in the meantime, feel free to tell us what's
[00:01:01] really not working and we'll maybe consider taking it into account.
[00:01:05] Maybe.
[00:01:06] Speaking of, what do we got in the mailbag?
[00:01:08] Anything good?
[00:01:09] We've got a ton of listener feedback and enough creepy sleep paralysis stories, that we're
[00:01:12] actually thinking about doing a follow-up episode just to kind of touch more on those.
[00:01:15] Shout out to Joe, Samantha, Daniel, Golden, Raj, and Amy for those emails.
[00:01:19] Shout out to Sean on Instagram for his sleep paralysis story.
[00:01:22] And shoutout toTona, James, Sorry, Jamie, and Sheri Lynn in the Facebook group.
[00:01:27] We don't know exactly where or when we're going to be sharing all these stories, but
[00:01:30] we're working on it, so we want you to keep them coming.
[00:01:33] It's really been so rad.
[00:01:34] If you are in the Facebook group, we're following us on Instagram and Twitter already.
[00:01:37] Like, what are you waiting for?
[00:01:38] Be sure to like, follow, subscribe, rate, and review anywhere you get your podcast and
[00:01:41] talk to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, wherever we're fucking around.
[00:01:46] We're around.
[00:01:47] And I got to say, I've been spending a lot of time in the Facebook group.
[00:01:49] It's been really popping off in there and having a good time.
[00:01:52] I let everybody know I'm a writer first and foremost, so this is really not something I'm
[00:01:56] used to doing, but so far, everyone who's listened has been really awesome.
[00:02:00] And I'm really excited to see how this two way street continues because it turns out
[00:02:04] our fans are all great writers and storytellers and artists themselves.
[00:02:09] I knew we'd have talented fans.
[00:02:10] I kept saying this.
[00:02:11] Yeah, dude, since day one speaking of which shout out to Amber who listened to the first
[00:02:15] episode while painting and shared that with us, which is so cool.
[00:02:18] We checked out her art and it rules their velvet paintings and stuff like Muppets and
[00:02:21] Beetlejuice and all the crap we're into and all the ones that I wanted were already sold
[00:02:25] out.
[00:02:26] But if velvet paintings are your thing, you can check out our work on Instagram at lowlife
[00:02:29] high road, all one word.
[00:02:31] Also shout out to listener Olivia Taylor Dudley and her creative partner, Andrew Bowser.
[00:02:35] We just saw their movie Onyx the fortuitous and the talisman of souls last week.
[00:02:40] It's a horror comedy in the vein of like, earnest, scared, stupid or P.E.
[00:02:43] Herman.
[00:02:44] It's not like any movie you have seen this year.
[00:02:47] I can guarantee you that great practical effects, some incredible puppets, especially
[00:02:51] for an independent movie that raised all the money themselves, great old school score
[00:02:55] and really funny performances.
[00:02:57] It's pretty much the perfect movie for Halloween.
[00:02:59] And finally, as we suspected, got a lot of feedback on our tasteless depiction of Dracula's
[00:03:04] as all having suspicious red eyes.
[00:03:06] We owe Dracula's an apology.
[00:03:07] They have many different colors of eyes, from cold black to deathly white to blood red
[00:03:12] and everything in between.
[00:03:14] They are not all suspicious.
[00:03:16] We shouldn't have painted them with such a broad brush.
[00:03:19] Now, to our cool Dracula's out there.
[00:03:23] That brings us full circle.
[00:03:25] Ed, how do you feel about Halloween?
[00:03:42] I'm not sure.
[00:03:56] I'm not sure.
[00:04:16] I'm not sure.
[00:04:31] I'm not sure.
[00:04:49] I'm not sure.
[00:05:07] I'm not sure.
[00:05:24] I'm not sure.
[00:05:42] I'm not sure.
[00:05:58] I'm not sure.
[00:06:15] I'm not sure.
[00:06:32] But that's all just because for most of us, Halloween is safe.
[00:06:48] And those tricks might be deadly.
[00:06:50] So Ed, you ready to hate Halloween a little bit more?
[00:06:54] I mean, is that possible?
[00:06:56] Let's go!
[00:06:58] Are we scared?
[00:07:14] Halloween candy.
[00:07:15] Whether poison or razor blades or glass or nails, the idea that some madman is trying
[00:07:20] to kill people with deadly candy is an effective and terrifying proposition.
[00:07:24] So much so that a term was coined for it.
[00:07:27] Halloween's sadism.
[00:07:29] But we'll get to the origin of that term a little bit later.
[00:07:32] There are a thousand flavors of this myth.
[00:07:35] And it's scary because it's an unexpected attack on innocence at its core.
[00:07:40] I think it's sort of like almost everyone's accidentally drank a glass of orange juice
[00:07:44] and they thought it was going to be milk because they weren't paying attention or something.
[00:07:47] Oh, that happened to me.
[00:07:48] I came down as a kid and I saw, I don't know if I had poured something already or if
[00:07:52] I'm just a lunatic who saw a cup and decided this is mine now, but I came down one more
[00:07:57] morning.
[00:07:58] I'm talking like a little kid.
[00:07:59] And I saw like brown liquid in a cup and I thought it was soda, but it was prune juice.
[00:08:05] And I like took a huge gulp and I'm like, oh hell yeah, Pepsi or whatever.
[00:08:08] And it was fucking disgusting and I spit it out everywhere.
[00:08:12] Like a cartoon character.
[00:08:13] Yeah.
[00:08:14] And my mom came in the room and she was so mad.
[00:08:16] Right.
[00:08:17] At the mess I made.
[00:08:18] Like this is on you.
[00:08:19] Don't leave out prune juice looking like Pepsi.
[00:08:21] So these legends are kind of like that except imagine the dark liquid was gasoline and instead
[00:08:26] of spitting it out, you died.
[00:08:27] I don't know.
[00:08:28] Do you die from drinking gasoline?
[00:08:30] I feel like I've watched my dad and uncles like siphon cars a billion times.
[00:08:35] Not on the streets in gas, but like for work that they were doing and you'd always get
[00:08:40] a bunch in their mouth and they spit it right before they like is all starts coming out.
[00:08:43] Sure.
[00:08:44] My point is that these booby trapped candy legends prey on that fear.
[00:08:49] I think one of the things I wanted to get off the top is that there are a couple different
[00:08:52] versions of the story we're going to focus on poison candy and razor blade apples, but
[00:08:57] these stories have blossomed out into people giving out weed gummies on Halloween to kids.
[00:09:02] People giving out meth hidden in candy to kids people putting LSD on temporary tattoos
[00:09:08] that they give to kids.
[00:09:09] Most of these stories have very little basis in reality, but they are deeply frightening
[00:09:14] because of the unexpected nature of something horrible happening during something that
[00:09:19] should be joyous and celebratory even if a little bit spooky and scary.
[00:09:24] Hey, do any kids get hurt in this episode?
[00:09:25] No, no, the kids.
[00:09:27] No, the kids are fine.
[00:09:29] Then how come Mr. disclaimer is calling?
[00:09:30] Just don't answer it.
[00:09:31] It's fine.
[00:09:32] We have to answer it.
[00:09:33] No, we don't.
[00:09:34] We always have to answer it.
[00:09:35] We have to answer it if it's the president.
[00:09:37] You're low.
[00:09:38] Go ahead.
[00:09:39] This episode features discussions of child harm and murder, no matter what Chris says.
[00:09:43] Chris will say anything to get Ed to do an episode.
[00:09:45] All righty.
[00:09:46] Thanks for your call.
[00:09:47] You said that was going to be nothing.
[00:09:49] It's a little harm and murder, just to keep things spicy.
[00:09:52] So with that being said, yes, let's kick off by talking about razors and apples.
[00:09:57] Ed, your theory on why that's the worst idea.
[00:09:59] I think it's dumb because who the fuck wants an apple?
[00:10:02] Like you're literally this whole evening for a child is like, I'm going out and I'm
[00:10:07] getting candy, something that is most families, it's restrictive where it's like, oh, you
[00:10:12] can have don't spoil your dinner, but this is the one night a year where you're allowed
[00:10:17] to just have a lot of ... Don't get me wrong, when I got home, my parents were like, don't
[00:10:20] get out of hand with eating the candy on night one, but it is just something where you're
[00:10:23] like, fuck the food pyramid tonight's about Reese's and fucking candy bars and stuff.
[00:10:29] I want to know how many kids dodged a bullet by just throwing that apple into the fucking
[00:10:34] woods.
[00:10:35] Yeah.
[00:10:36] Because they were like, oh, an apple, fuck you lady.
[00:10:37] And then they probably told other kids like, don't go to 1138 Elm.
[00:10:41] They fucking give out apples like losers.
[00:10:43] First of all, no kids should be eating fruits or vegetables on Halloween night.
[00:10:48] Or period.
[00:10:49] I really didn't, well, it was a lot of olive oil.
[00:10:50] Have you got a Honeycrisp apple ever?
[00:10:52] Honeycrisp apples are fucking good.
[00:10:56] Chris and Shola got me into cotton candy grapes and they're amazing.
[00:10:59] I don't know if you've had them, but they're fucking grapes that taste like cotton candy
[00:11:03] and they're so good.
[00:11:05] Apples are tough because it's like you do anything to them, I'm not interested anymore,
[00:11:08] and on their own, you gotta even do anything to them.
[00:11:11] Like a candied apple?
[00:11:13] Oh, okay.
[00:11:14] Is that mean like worse than a razor blade, it'll break all your teeth out of your head.
[00:11:19] The caramel?
[00:11:20] Either caramel or the red candied apple, which it's like, hey, did you ever wanna, I don't
[00:11:26] know, guard an apple with a wall of Jolly Rancher?
[00:11:30] Like if you can get past this, you will be storming this castle.
[00:11:34] No, you end up like you have nothing to bite with you.
[00:11:36] You actually get through it completely fucks your life up.
[00:11:38] Like if you threw a candied apple with someone, you can probably knock them out.
[00:11:41] Yeah.
[00:11:42] That's four.
[00:11:43] A very daredevil type child.
[00:11:45] Yeah, we're gonna get into this and now that I'm just, you know, I'm rizz off top of my
[00:11:48] idea, like candied apples, fucking trash, bobbing for apples is, I just mentioned this
[00:11:52] last time, one of the grossest things in the fucking place.
[00:11:54] Yeah, all that spit, all your, I mean, especially in the past when people were like, did you
[00:11:58] ever do it?
[00:11:59] No, I, I did it in a classroom.
[00:12:01] Yeah.
[00:12:02] I was gonna say maybe, maybe in like second or third grade.
[00:12:04] Yeah.
[00:12:05] That's exactly right.
[00:12:06] Yeah.
[00:12:07] When I was in like elementary school, we'd have Halloween parties in the classroom and it
[00:12:09] always included bobbing for apples.
[00:12:11] Yeah.
[00:12:12] And all your spit and all your like gross kid mouth shit is getting in that water.
[00:12:17] You're not doing that in the age of COVID.
[00:12:18] No, no, you certainly aren't.
[00:12:20] Yeah.
[00:12:21] So, I mean, here's the good thing about razor blade apples.
[00:12:24] It's unlikely that anyone has ever actually tried to hurt a child that way.
[00:12:30] And while there are reports of razor blades in apples that stretch back to 1967, there's
[00:12:36] no one specific incident.
[00:12:38] There's no kid or now grown person walking around out there going, oh yeah, I was normal
[00:12:44] until I ate a razor blade from an apple in Halloween.
[00:12:47] And now my tongue looks like a fucking snake.
[00:12:50] That's never happened.
[00:12:51] As far as anyone knows, the stories that started to warn about hidden razor blades in apples
[00:12:55] started in 1967 on the east coast of the U.S. and as well as Ottawa and Toronto, strangely.
[00:13:02] Which are also, I think east coast.
[00:13:03] Yes.
[00:13:04] There's some meme type legend started in the late sixties that spread.
[00:13:09] And people were so frightened by the idea that New Jersey actually passed a law just
[00:13:15] before Halloween 1968 that mandated prison terms for anyone caught booby trapping apples,
[00:13:21] which I think seems kind of redundant because it seems like you'd get prosecuted for that
[00:13:26] anyway.
[00:13:27] Unless New Jersey had some like a loophole around if you booby trapped food, you could
[00:13:31] skate.
[00:13:32] I don't know.
[00:13:33] Before legislation however unnecessary or like on acted upon.
[00:13:38] Sure.
[00:13:39] I mean, I looked.
[00:13:40] I tried to find I wanted to see if I could read some funny quotes from the from this
[00:13:43] law and I could not find it.
[00:13:45] Well, as you know, if you Google my name before you get to me, you get to another
[00:13:49] advocate who poisoned the water supply, you always say that you always say it was a different
[00:13:54] advocate, but I don't know that anyone's actually ever time stamped.
[00:13:57] Okay.
[00:13:58] You can see it's like I was a kid like it was no way or even before.
[00:14:01] Okay. There's a couple of goals that come up before me that are fucking grisly, but that
[00:14:06] said, I'm the good one.
[00:14:07] I'm the nice one.
[00:14:08] Yeah.
[00:14:09] Edvacola on Mike.
[00:14:11] This is the angel.
[00:14:12] Edvacola.
[00:14:13] Well, that's also probably goes to show that like I'm for legislation stopping other
[00:14:17] edvacolas, you know, doing things other edvacolas, they hate legislation like that because they
[00:14:21] want to poison water supplies and do stuff like that.
[00:14:23] Here's the bad news.
[00:14:25] Some of those other edvacolas were not stopped by these laws because the following year,
[00:14:29] 14 incidents of razor blades and apples were reported just in New Jersey alone.
[00:14:34] Oh my God.
[00:14:35] They didn't they were brash.
[00:14:36] They didn't care.
[00:14:37] They didn't care.
[00:14:38] They said, you pass a lot of stop me.
[00:14:40] No, I'm going to hurt a kid anyway.
[00:14:42] But the thing, the thing about all this is that, you know, I think a important disclaimer
[00:14:48] for a lot of the stories that we're going to be talking about for the rest of this episode,
[00:14:52] it's so hard to ascertain exactly how some of this stuff went down because the news reports
[00:14:59] and the police reports are often being filed by panicking parents who have heard of these
[00:15:04] stories.
[00:15:05] Yeah, I in very much in that camp where I'm like, anybody who's like, I got a razor
[00:15:12] blade with an apple or I got X, Y, and Z, they just fucking did it and they said this
[00:15:17] happened.
[00:15:18] I do genuinely believe in the good of humanity.
[00:15:22] It's harder by the day to say this.
[00:15:24] But I think I'm a big social contract guy.
[00:15:26] I believe we sign a social contract that like food courts, oftentimes on the first floor
[00:15:31] of them all second floor them all got all sorts of stores.
[00:15:33] You can look down in the food court.
[00:15:35] I do believe that we don't turn on the news every night and see that someone's been throwing
[00:15:38] bowling balls down and the people eating bread bowls or whatever, because we do sign a social
[00:15:42] contract that we're going to walk through this earth and try not to do stupid shit like
[00:15:46] that.
[00:15:47] Sure.
[00:15:48] Especially when kids are involved, I think people aren't out there potentially doing this, but
[00:15:51] I do see people being stupid on a micro level of being like, look at this thing and lie
[00:15:57] about it.
[00:15:58] Yeah, I think especially when it involves, you know, eight, 10, 12 year olds.
[00:16:02] Well, now, are you aware of, are you familiar with?
[00:16:04] Do you remember like a bunch of years ago, there was a Pokemon animated series issue where
[00:16:10] like kids in Japan were having epileptic seizures because of, yeah, that was the story.
[00:16:14] And I know they put an epileptic warning on Pokemon.
[00:16:17] Yeah.
[00:16:18] The thing is what they discovered, I believe, what I had read in the past, is that like
[00:16:22] a massive percentage of that when they like looked into it was just kids getting excited
[00:16:28] by other kids and then hearing about this thing that can happen and they talked to their
[00:16:31] friends at school and it was like, you know, I maybe I felt a little dizzy too, maybe.
[00:16:34] Yeah.
[00:16:35] And then they tell their parents and the parents call the school board and then, you know,
[00:16:37] how oftentimes no matter what country you're in, parents are calling like fucking organizations
[00:16:41] and next thing you know, it's like 89% of kids in Japan had an epileptic episode during
[00:16:47] Pokemon, but the reality was it was just like this weird mass hysteria and kids wanting
[00:16:51] to like feel included with their friends.
[00:16:53] Yes, exactly.
[00:16:55] And I think that's kind of the case here is that most of this stuff is kids fucking around
[00:17:02] or getting scared over something that, you know, they heard on the schoolyard, so to speak,
[00:17:07] but not everything in this world falls into that space.
[00:17:11] There is a history believe it or not of poison candy and even weirder things that happened
[00:17:19] on Halloween.
[00:17:20] And I think the history of it is really interesting because at first these fears about the dangers
[00:17:26] of food weren't even connected to Halloween.
[00:17:28] God, I feel like I am a living example of a dangers of food and has nothing to do with
[00:17:32] razor blades.
[00:17:33] I'm just like, man, I got a I got a diet, yeah, I gotta put the pizzas down.
[00:17:39] I know I was talking shit on candy dapples earlier, but I got to stop eating four of
[00:17:41] those a week, dude.
[00:17:43] Is that the problem?
[00:17:44] Is it candied apples?
[00:17:45] No, I don't think it is.
[00:17:46] If anything, I wouldn't have a problem if it was candied apples because then the food
[00:17:50] I want has a protective wall that I would give up on.
[00:17:53] Yeah, yeah, yeah, you can't not do it.
[00:17:55] No, I'm ever easily edible food, but a lot of these panics started during the industrial
[00:18:00] revolution when food production moved from inside the home to outside the home.
[00:18:05] And suddenly, kids and adults were consuming food made by people that they didn't know.
[00:18:11] And I mean, before the Industrial Revolution, you didn't make everything in the home, but
[00:18:14] there was a guy in town who made a lot of, you know, breads or your dairy farmer or whoever,
[00:18:20] like you kind of knew where your food was coming from.
[00:18:22] But during the Industrial Revolution, that change completely and food started being made
[00:18:26] in other countries, on the other side of the world, using machines and techniques that
[00:18:31] everyday people weren't even necessarily familiar with how any of this worked and food--
[00:18:36] Do you know how many spider legs are like allowed into our food?
[00:18:39] Too many.
[00:18:40] I don't know the number, but there is a number where it's like--
[00:18:43] A 16-ounce box of spaghetti can contain 450 insect parts and nine rodent hairs.
[00:18:49] Would you like to hear more filthy food facts?
[00:18:53] I get it.
[00:18:54] You can't get all the spider legs out of shit.
[00:18:56] No, you can't possibly.
[00:18:57] There's going to be an element of rats or spider legs.
[00:19:00] But it is weird that they're like, you're getting a bunch of blueberries.
[00:19:03] You find like a fucking fly wing in there.
[00:19:06] We actually have a percentage of fly wings we're allowed to send you.
[00:19:09] Yeah.
[00:19:10] I love there's a viral internet story about a guy who found a tree frog in a head of lettuce,
[00:19:14] which is anyone who knows me knows I love tree frogs.
[00:19:17] No, for you, that's your Cracker Jack prize.
[00:19:19] Oh my god.
[00:19:20] If I found a tree frog in my food, I would build him such a beautiful little enclosure
[00:19:25] and we'd be best friends.
[00:19:26] Do you ever watch that video of the guy who built the like 3D printed the enclosure for
[00:19:29] the frog?
[00:19:30] Yes.
[00:19:31] And he hangs on his little posts.
[00:19:32] Yeah.
[00:19:33] So cute, but back to the scary stuff because frogs are beautiful and not scary at all.
[00:19:36] So as food became foreign, there was a sudden uptick in reports of kids getting sick and
[00:19:43] dying from eating candy on Wikipedia.
[00:19:46] And I know Wikipedia is not always the best source, but Wikipedia says that some doctors
[00:19:50] at the time claim that they were treating kids being poisoned by candy nearly every day.
[00:19:56] It seems insane.
[00:19:58] Do you have a year on that?
[00:20:00] No, I don't.
[00:20:01] I don't.
[00:20:02] But during this time period, you know, in the middle and towards the end of the industrial
[00:20:05] revolution as these things change, that's the time period.
[00:20:08] I don't know.
[00:20:09] I don't have an exact date.
[00:20:10] I bet you it's a it's probably right in that era of we're moving candy production offshore
[00:20:15] because now you've got guys who had soda pop shops being like, you know, I hear the candy
[00:20:19] you get from fucking Indonesia, it's filled with rat bones.
[00:20:23] Yeah.
[00:20:24] Yeah.
[00:20:25] And people back to their to their soda pop shops.
[00:20:27] So none of these reports ever seem to have been substantiated except for one in 1858.
[00:20:33] 1858.
[00:20:34] 1858.
[00:20:35] So you're saying none of them seem substantiated up until.
[00:20:38] So like, is my soda pop story completely not accurately?
[00:20:41] You're talking like during the Civil War production went offshore?
[00:20:45] I don't I don't know exactly when candy
[00:20:46] Hello. I know that-- I mean, I grew up in Hershey, Pennsylvania, and I know Milton Hershey was making his candies in Pennsylvania.
[00:20:52] Tell you how it was.
[00:20:53] Look at Patreon.
[00:20:54] Although that would have been post-- I don't know exactly when his factory started but--
[00:20:57] Well, he built the town during the Great Depression, right?
[00:21:00] He-- so that would have been--
[00:21:01] He built up the town during the Great Depression, but he started in the early 1900s, I want to say.
[00:21:05] Okay.
[00:21:06] "Handful of Kisses and a Drain."
[00:21:07] But anyway, the first major case of mass poisoning of children through candy happened in 1858.
[00:21:14] It better not be the last case for us, I don't know how far the show goes.
[00:21:17] (Laughter)
[00:21:19] Well, what happened was, there was a man named William Hardiker who was colloquially known as Humbug Billy.
[00:21:27] Humbug Billy sounds capable of a lot worse than Boyzinn and candy.
[00:21:32] I don't know, Humbug Billy just kind of sounds like he's not into these holidays.
[00:21:35] That's like--
[00:21:36] That's your traditional screwed situation.
[00:21:38] Sure.
[00:21:39] He operated a market stall-- and this was in the UK. This was in the States.
[00:21:42] But he operated a market in Bradford, Yorkshire, England, where he sold his candy.
[00:21:48] One of his most popular items was a licorice treat called Humbug's
[00:21:52] that he bought from a local candy maker named Joseph Neal.
[00:21:56] Now, when this was happening in 19th century England, sugar was a really expensive luxury item.
[00:22:02] So, Joseph Neal, the candy maker who sold the Humbug's, would substitute sugar with something called daft,
[00:22:09] which is a very British thing to call your substitute,
[00:22:14] which was a white tasteless odorless gypsum powder made from limestone sulfate,
[00:22:21] which ended up itself sounds poisonous.
[00:22:24] It's this treating candy like it's like it's a cocaine.
[00:22:27] Hey man, this is good candy. It's only been stepped on like twice.
[00:22:30] Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:22:31] We only put a half ounce of borax per piece.
[00:22:33] Yeah, it's just like, God, are you fucking seriously?
[00:22:35] You're stepping on this candy, dude?
[00:22:37] But here's what happened, and this was around Halloween.
[00:22:39] Although to be fair, I don't know in October 1858,
[00:22:43] I don't know what Halloween was looking like in the UK.
[00:22:46] But is Halloween popular in the UK now?
[00:22:48] I feel like America loves Halloween more than anyone else.
[00:22:51] I don't know. That's a good question.
[00:22:52] It's a right in any UK listeners.
[00:22:54] Listen to the Halloween's it popping off of there?
[00:22:56] Or did Baja Humbug fuck it up for everybody?
[00:22:58] Halloween in the UK dates back to the--
[00:23:01] No, we don't want it from you. We want it from our UK listeners.
[00:23:03] Sorry, Chris. What were you saying?
[00:23:05] In October 1858, this guy, Joseph Neal, the candy maker,
[00:23:09] bought his death from a local druggist named Charles Hodgson.
[00:23:14] But Hodgson fucked up and confused his gypsum powder
[00:23:18] with another white powder that he had, arsenic.
[00:23:22] No.
[00:23:22] So 12 pounds of arsenic was incorporated into the 40 pounds
[00:23:27] of peppermint humbugs that Joseph Neal made and sold to Humbug Billy
[00:23:32] to sell to children right around Halloween.
[00:23:34] That's like almost a quarter arsenic.
[00:23:36] That's actually more than a quarter arsenic.
[00:23:39] Thanks.
[00:23:39] Sorry for raising my voice back there trivia button.
[00:23:41] So, Articor, notice that the candy hasn't--
[00:23:45] Is it pronounced murderer now?
[00:23:47] Yeah, William murderer, Humbug.
[00:23:49] Oh, so, Harderker is Humbug.
[00:23:51] William Harderker is Humbug Billy.
[00:23:53] Yeah, which is weird that he gets the nickname
[00:23:55] 'cause he didn't even make the candy.
[00:23:57] No, but I assume that when this happened,
[00:23:59] he was the guy who sold it and killed people.
[00:24:02] Honestly, I don't know, it kind of seems like he's a fall guy
[00:24:05] a little bit.
[00:24:05] He's a victim of the supply chain.
[00:24:06] Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
[00:24:07] Yeah, like, now that we're sitting here,
[00:24:08] I think we should start a second podcast to bargain this guy.
[00:24:11] It's like serial for Humbug Billy.
[00:24:13] We gotta bring justice to the Humbug family if at all possible.
[00:24:17] Here's where he fucked up though.
[00:24:18] Humbug Billy did notice that the candy he received
[00:24:22] from his supplier had an unusual color.
[00:24:25] He was a little worried about it,
[00:24:27] but he still sold five pounds of it at his market.
[00:24:30] Each Humbug that he sold
[00:24:32] contained an estimated 600 milligrams of arsenic.
[00:24:36] The lethal dose is around 100 to 300 milligrams.
[00:24:40] And I will say if it's anything like buying edibles,
[00:24:42] sometimes it's like, oh, it's 10 milligrams of THC
[00:24:45] or whatever.
[00:24:46] And you're like, maybe the sheet is supposed to be that way,
[00:24:48] but I definitely got some fucking shit that
[00:24:50] with the whole rolled one side of that corner.
[00:24:53] And that's what I'm eating right now.
[00:24:54] Yeah, so there's definitely some kids
[00:24:55] who got like 80% arsenic.
[00:24:57] Yeah, so Humbug Billy was responsible
[00:24:59] for 200 people getting sick and 21 people dying
[00:25:03] from his arsenic-laced candies.
[00:25:04] I don't have too much information
[00:25:06] about like the court case or anything that resulted from it,
[00:25:09] but it is as far as I could find the earliest case
[00:25:13] of a Halloween or an October candy poisoning case.
[00:25:18] If I'm Humbug some constables knocking on my door,
[00:25:21] you gotta be like, if I'm going to prison,
[00:25:23] then the guy who made it's gotta go to the gallows.
[00:25:25] Yeah, yeah.
[00:25:26] And it's like, I'm just a guy who sold admittedly off
[00:25:29] colored candy.
[00:25:30] I would love to know what color it was supposed to be
[00:25:33] and what color it was.
[00:25:34] It's supposed to be like brown and it's just ashen gray.
[00:25:37] And he's like, I don't know, move it.
[00:25:38] Cause whatever is named Charles or whoever,
[00:25:40] his return policy is taken to leave it.
[00:25:42] Yeah.
[00:25:43] So you got to move this candy.
[00:25:44] Well, yeah, Charles Hodgson is the one who made the mistake
[00:25:48] and confused his gypsum powder with arsenic,
[00:25:50] which I feel like if you're a drugist,
[00:25:51] that's a jailable offense.
[00:25:54] Your job is to know the difference between arsenic
[00:25:57] and gypsum powder.
[00:25:58] I will say that it was an interesting time where the drugist
[00:26:02] literally also owned the candy store.
[00:26:04] And this is not exclusive to him.
[00:26:05] I mean, that's what like soda pop shops were.
[00:26:07] Like when you watch old movies,
[00:26:08] it is like I'm going there to get time and all but also a bit
[00:26:11] of honey.
[00:26:12] Oh, it's a bit of honey.
[00:26:13] I've never had this.
[00:26:14] Oh, a bit of honey is like a disgusting old candy.
[00:26:16] Some people probably love it.
[00:26:17] Everyone knows my favorite candies are good and plenty.
[00:26:19] Idaho spuds.
[00:26:20] And a thing called see howard violets.
[00:26:22] So like I'm no one to talk.
[00:26:24] But yeah, a bit of honey is trash.
[00:26:26] My favorite candy is Heroboe in case anyone wants to send us
[00:26:28] a care package.
[00:26:29] At some point we'll be providing a PO box for candy.
[00:26:33] You monsters aren't going to get our home addresses
[00:26:35] anytime soon.
[00:26:36] And I hope by the end of this episode you won't get the idea
[00:26:39] to send all those candy with razor blades in it.
[00:26:41] Yeah, we're going to check all of it.
[00:26:43] So it took about a hundred years for there to be another
[00:26:46] Halloween specific food tampering case.
[00:26:50] It happened in California in 1959 and that Halloween, a
[00:26:54] California dentist named William Shine distributed 450
[00:26:59] laxative laced candies to children 30 of whom fell ill.
[00:27:03] Wait, so a dentist?
[00:27:05] A dentist who's presumably taken some form of the
[00:27:08] Hippocratic oath because he's in the medical field?
[00:27:10] Yeah, I guess.
[00:27:11] So he decided, you know what?
[00:27:12] I am going to do harm.
[00:27:13] He did.
[00:27:14] And it's to kids asses?
[00:27:16] I think I'm jackass.
[00:27:17] But in this case, laxative is the best version of that sentence.
[00:27:21] Yeah.
[00:27:21] Wait, also, so two, a hundred years apart, two Billies, two
[00:27:25] Williams.
[00:27:25] True.
[00:27:26] William Shine also could have been a humbug Billy, but he
[00:27:29] probably didn't know about the idea.
[00:27:30] I don't know.
[00:27:31] I kind of love the idea that there is a lineage there where
[00:27:33] it is just like, I'm the grandson of humbug Billy.
[00:27:37] Yeah.
[00:27:37] And he got fucked over because Charles walked free.
[00:27:40] Yeah.
[00:27:40] You know, my grandpa got boned.
[00:27:42] So now I'm going to for some reason do this too.
[00:27:44] I don't know where that goes.
[00:27:45] But humbug Billy Shine fell far short of killing 21 people
[00:27:50] or making 200 people sick.
[00:27:52] He only managed to get 30 people sick and was later
[00:27:54] charged with outrage of public decency and an unlawful
[00:27:58] dispensing of drugs.
[00:28:00] That's California for you.
[00:28:01] They didn't have any laws until like four years ago.
[00:28:03] Now it does make you wonder, what is the motivation?
[00:28:06] If anything, you want kids out there slamming their teeth
[00:28:09] into a candied apple so that you get more business as humbug
[00:28:12] DDS.
[00:28:13] Yeah.
[00:28:14] But instead he was like, let's
[00:28:15] turn them off from getting more candy.
[00:28:17] It seems like a bad business plan.
[00:28:19] There wasn't too much information
[00:28:20] about why William Shine did this.
[00:28:22] There was a little bit of information
[00:28:24] about the next high profile case that made headlines regarding
[00:28:27] what would become the known as Halloween Sadism.
[00:28:30] In 1964, a 47 year old mother from Greenland, New York
[00:28:33] named Helen Fyle handed out bags of treats that
[00:28:36] contained arsenic lace ant traps, metal mesh scrubbing pads,
[00:28:40] and dog biscuits.
[00:28:41] You didn't mention a single candy.
[00:28:43] No, there was no poison candy in this.
[00:28:45] Although the reason that it became a high profile case
[00:28:48] is because of the arsenic lace ant traps.
[00:28:51] But I think it should have been a high profile case
[00:28:53] even if there was no arsenic.
[00:28:54] It was just like woman hands out ant traps on Halloween.
[00:28:57] Well that wouldn't be a cat.
[00:28:58] I mean, I don't know that's what we mean.
[00:28:59] I guess, yeah, right.
[00:29:00] It wouldn't be a case.
[00:29:01] But it should make the news to if no other reason
[00:29:04] shame this woman.
[00:29:05] Yeah.
[00:29:06] Well, she was famed.
[00:29:07] It made the news.
[00:29:07] It made the New York Times.
[00:29:08] And it seemed like she did this because she was frustrated
[00:29:12] about kids who were too old to be trick-or-treating
[00:29:15] and she wanted to give them tricks.
[00:29:16] And I don't disagree with that logic.
[00:29:18] Hey, as a person who was forced into old age fucking trick-or-treating,
[00:29:23] we don't know those kids story.
[00:29:24] We don't know why they're out there at 22.
[00:29:27] That's true.
[00:29:27] We don't--
[00:29:29] There was a 22-year-old who came trick-or-treating
[00:29:31] alone to her house.
[00:29:33] She legally can pull a gun on them, I think.
[00:29:34] Yeah, I think it's true.
[00:29:35] I'm depending on what's day.
[00:29:36] I think if you're not in Texas, you have to pull an ant trap.
[00:29:40] Yeah.
[00:29:41] I don't totally blame Helen File for this.
[00:29:43] I don't know if she gave these arsenic ant traps to kids.
[00:29:46] I guess I have more questions.
[00:29:48] Who is the arsenic-4?
[00:29:49] Is it for the kids?
[00:29:50] Or is it for like this is an extra-affective ant trap?
[00:29:53] No, I think it was just sort of like, oh, you
[00:29:55] want to be an 18-year-old trick-or-treating.
[00:29:57] Here's some stuff maybe you need for your dorm room.
[00:29:59] I'm not sure.
[00:30:00] You know, what kind of Sunni purchase?
[00:30:03] I'm sorry you have an ant problem with her.
[00:30:05] What year was this?
[00:30:06] This was 1964.
[00:30:08] So '64, giving out ant traps.
[00:30:10] Yeah, I guess-- I don't know.
[00:30:11] I guess it's a vibe, I don't know.
[00:30:13] And it's weird that until 1964, arsenic still super-gettable.
[00:30:17] I feel like 100 years earlier, you accidentally, you know,
[00:30:20] clumsy professor, a bunch of arsenic.
[00:30:22] But in 1964, I feel like you got to look for arsenic.
[00:30:24] How do you know how gettable arsenic is?
[00:30:27] Have you been trying to get some?
[00:30:28] No, I'm saying the fact that by 1964, you can still
[00:30:31] get a bunch to use.
[00:30:34] I feel like if I googled get arsenic right now,
[00:30:37] I'm not sure what my options are without some sort of,
[00:30:39] oh, I need it for a science experiment.
[00:30:40] Well, this is built into ant traps, you know?
[00:30:42] It's not like, I don't think she bought the arsenic separately,
[00:30:45] so it would be like if you handed out, like,
[00:30:48] raid to kids.
[00:30:49] Well, so now I'm triply confused.
[00:30:51] So she didn't lace ant traps with arsenic.
[00:30:54] I think they were ant traps that had arsenic in them already, I think.
[00:30:57] So like old ant traps.
[00:30:58] She got a deal on old ant traps.
[00:30:59] It was 1964, I think that's just what ant traps were.
[00:31:03] OK, well, I feel like this woman--
[00:31:04] I'm not even sure why she's in trouble then.
[00:31:06] I mean, I think it's because by this point in the '60s,
[00:31:10] these stories were starting to spread.
[00:31:12] And the reason that I know that is because, in 1974,
[00:31:16] a writer named Richard Trubeau published an article
[00:31:20] in something called PTA Magazine, which
[00:31:23] sounds like the worst magazine of all time.
[00:31:26] And he coined a term for these bizarre pranks.
[00:31:28] He called it Halloween sadism, which is a totally chill name,
[00:31:33] and not at all something that's going to cause panic.
[00:31:35] Well, here's the thing, it was in poison toddlers and adults
[00:31:39] magazine.
[00:31:40] So it's actually-- that should be the cover story.
[00:31:43] That's true.
[00:31:43] That's true.
[00:31:44] He should be publishing this constantly.
[00:31:46] But anyway, this 1964 thing with Helen file
[00:31:49] wasn't like a one-off incident.
[00:31:51] There were already some of these stories circulating enough
[00:31:53] that 10 years later, Dickie Trubeau, published this article.
[00:31:56] That same year, one of the most infamous cases involving
[00:32:01] poison candy on Halloween, happened, which was in Pasadena,
[00:32:05] Texas, an eight-year-old kid named Timothy O'Brien died
[00:32:09] after eating a pixie stick laced with cyanide.
[00:32:12] And the investigation revealed that he had actually
[00:32:14] received the candy from his father, Ronald,
[00:32:17] who had taken out a life insurance policy on Timothy.
[00:32:20] And Ronald had tried to give or had
[00:32:22] given these poison pixie sticks to three or four other kids,
[00:32:25] none of whom ate them.
[00:32:27] But his plan was a bunch of kids would eat these pixie sticks,
[00:32:30] and it would cover that he'd kill his own kid for money.
[00:32:34] But this situation, this case, is exactly what I imagine
[00:32:38] all of these stories are, which is at the heart of any of this.
[00:32:42] And we touched on it earlier, is it's just people
[00:32:44] doing it themselves.
[00:32:45] Because, again, I do believe, as a society,
[00:32:48] we sign a social contract.
[00:32:50] For all the reasons we'll get into later,
[00:32:51] Halloween is this fucked-up evening
[00:32:53] where kids are supposed to feel safe and adults
[00:32:56] are supposed to get drunk.
[00:32:57] And it's as simple as that.
[00:32:58] And I do think that that's like a sanctity thing
[00:33:00] where people do adhere to that.
[00:33:02] And so the idea that someone's going to come out and say,
[00:33:05] my, you know, kids got poisoned pixie sticks from Halloween
[00:33:09] as an alibi.
[00:33:10] Like, that fits entirely into my theory,
[00:33:13] which is like, he'll do that in his own home
[00:33:15] in hope that that works as an alibi.
[00:33:17] But I think, in general, people aren't poisoning pixie sticks.
[00:33:20] Right.
[00:33:21] In general, I don't think they are.
[00:33:22] He did give those poison pixie sticks to other children.
[00:33:25] In hopes?
[00:33:26] Yeah, he gave them to three or four other kids.
[00:33:29] In hopes that, like, it strengthens his alibi.
[00:33:31] Yes.
[00:33:31] That somebody was handing these out.
[00:33:33] Well, I never said the guy was an idiot.
[00:33:35] That does, you know, I guess, fuck.
[00:33:37] I guess that's residual collateral damage to his plan.
[00:33:39] Some of those other kids he gave the pixie sticks to
[00:33:42] might have been some of his other children.
[00:33:44] But that seems like that would have been a bad idea
[00:33:46] that one of these kids--
[00:33:47] Well, it was also how many kids from how many different people
[00:33:51] does he have?
[00:33:51] Like, we got kids who were banging on his door.
[00:33:55] That also was children?
[00:33:56] I'm going to dad's house.
[00:33:58] I heard he's giving out king-sized pixie sticks.
[00:34:00] OK, here we go.
[00:34:01] October 31, '74, O'Brien took his two children,
[00:34:04] trick or treating, and pass it into Texas.
[00:34:06] O'Brien's neighbor and his two children accompanied them.
[00:34:09] After visiting a home where the occupant
[00:34:11] failed to answer the door, the children grew impatient,
[00:34:13] and ran ahead to the next home while O'Brien stayed behind.
[00:34:16] He eventually caught up with the group
[00:34:18] and produced five 21-inch pixie sticks,
[00:34:20] which he would later claim he was given from the occupant
[00:34:23] of the house that had not answered the door.
[00:34:26] Those are fucking huge pixie sticks.
[00:34:27] 21-inch, yeah, I mean, everyone lies
[00:34:29] about the size of the pixie stick, but 21-inches.
[00:34:32] That's questionable.
[00:34:33] That's, yeah, you would know.
[00:34:34] That's a big fish story.
[00:34:35] But at the end of the evening, O'Brien
[00:34:37] gave each of his neighbors two children a pixie stick,
[00:34:41] and one each to his own kids, Timothy and Elizabeth.
[00:34:44] And then upon returning home, he gave a fifth pixie stick
[00:34:47] to a 10-year-old boy who you recognized from church.
[00:34:50] OK, so they recognized from church, kid.
[00:34:52] To me, that does this guy in.
[00:34:54] I would believe if he was like, why did you give the two
[00:34:57] to the neighbors?
[00:34:58] It was just as simple as like, they
[00:35:00] saw me with these fucking massive pixie sticks.
[00:35:03] And who am I to be like, no, these are ours.
[00:35:05] And then I can buy him being like,
[00:35:07] I kind of had to do it to save face.
[00:35:08] But the fact that he rolled down a window being like,
[00:35:10] hey, Jimmy, Jimmy from fucking Pew number three at church.
[00:35:13] I got a huge pixie stick for you.
[00:35:16] It's 21-inches.
[00:35:17] 21 strong inches of pixie sugar.
[00:35:20] That to me does him in as like a fucking monster.
[00:35:23] Yeah.
[00:35:23] He did get the nickname, The Candyman and the man who
[00:35:26] killed Halloween.
[00:35:27] And he was executed.
[00:35:29] Executed for his crimes?
[00:35:30] For his crimes, yeah.
[00:35:31] Wow.
[00:35:32] And one say--
[00:35:33] In Texas.
[00:35:33] Yeah, Texas, they might have been
[00:35:34] keeping that alive a lot longer-- well,
[00:35:36] keeping killing alive a lot longer.
[00:35:38] And he did, in court, he maintained his innocence.
[00:35:41] And his defense was the urban legend
[00:35:43] that the rest have been a mad poisoner who
[00:35:45] is handing this stuff out.
[00:35:47] I was the opposing attorney.
[00:35:48] I would say, sir.
[00:35:49] How many houses did you go to on this night?
[00:35:52] And they'd be like, we went to 40 houses.
[00:35:54] How many of them gave you five of something?
[00:35:57] Five of the biggest pixie sticks produced
[00:36:00] by the pixie stick company?
[00:36:01] Yeah, if anything, if you're hanging out
[00:36:03] with these huge pixie sticks that had no official pixie stick
[00:36:07] markings on them, that were just novelty straws
[00:36:11] that they taped both ends of.
[00:36:12] Stilled cyanide and sugar.
[00:36:14] Yeah, I don't know if someone's like, hey,
[00:36:16] take six of these off my hands.
[00:36:18] That's ridiculous.
[00:36:19] No one's giving out six king size anything to just one guy.
[00:36:25] He was so fucked when he went to court.
[00:36:27] He pled not guilty.
[00:36:29] During the trial, a chemist who knew O'Brien testified
[00:36:32] that in summer '73, O'Brien contacted him,
[00:36:34] asking about cyanide and how much would be fatal.
[00:36:37] A different chemical supply salesman also testified
[00:36:40] that O'Brien had asked about a purchase cyanide.
[00:36:42] And friends and coworkers testified
[00:36:44] that in the months before Timothy's death,
[00:36:46] O'Brien showed a quote, unusual interest in cyanide
[00:36:50] and spoke about how much it would take to kill a person.
[00:36:53] I will say worse now, if it's all like emails,
[00:36:56] but the fact that you're memorable enough
[00:36:59] in the 1960s and 70s, where it's like, oh, yeah,
[00:37:02] I do remember this one guy ever calling.
[00:37:06] Yeah.
[00:37:06] Calling like KL 555 to be like, hey,
[00:37:10] just, you know, I'm doing a school project.
[00:37:12] How much, as we call it in the business,
[00:37:14] air quotes, pixie dust, would we need to like drop
[00:37:18] a 60 pound kid or whatever?
[00:37:20] And it was like, yeah, I do remember that being
[00:37:22] a weird call, so I like, I clocked that.
[00:37:24] He way overdid it.
[00:37:26] He, when they tested these pixie sticks,
[00:37:28] he had more pixie sticks for them to test.
[00:37:31] Well, they found that all five of the pixie sticks
[00:37:33] had been opened with the top two inches of the 21 inch stick
[00:37:37] refilled with cyanide and resealed with a staple.
[00:37:39] And according to the pathologist,
[00:37:41] the candy consumed by Timothy contained enough cyanide
[00:37:44] to kill two adults while the other four that went
[00:37:46] uneaten contained enough to kill three to four adults.
[00:37:49] You don't wanna pop a shake on that.
[00:37:51] You don't wanna like put the top two inches
[00:37:52] and shake it to mix it in so that people immediately taste it.
[00:37:56] That's the worst pixie stick I've ever had.
[00:37:57] I mean, this is really sad, but as soon as the kid
[00:38:00] tasted the candy, he complained that it was bitter.
[00:38:02] Well, that's what I'm saying, because he didn't pop a shake.
[00:38:04] Yeah, no, I know.
[00:38:05] You got a shake.
[00:38:05] You got to mix it up.
[00:38:06] You don't just pour in the top two inches like a, like a roob.
[00:38:09] His sister-in-law and brother-in-law testified that
[00:38:11] on the day of his kid's funeral, he spoke
[00:38:13] of using the money from Timothy's insurance policy to
[00:38:16] take a long vacation and buy other items.
[00:38:19] Well, even if you're totally innocent of your kid's
[00:38:21] poisoning that you're collecting life insurance from,
[00:38:24] I feel like you should not on the day of the funeral
[00:38:27] if you want to avoid suspicion.
[00:38:29] You're not going in there being like,
[00:38:30] "You know, I'm going to Hawaii now.
[00:38:32] "I mean, it sucks that he's dead,
[00:38:33] "but at least I can finally take that trip.
[00:38:35] "I've always wanted to take and buy all this shit."
[00:38:38] You're wearing a lot of pixie stick-themed jewelry.
[00:38:41] It's like, "Oh, yeah, I got this like,
[00:38:43] "collectors pixie stick.
[00:38:45] "A watch made Boba Garry."
[00:38:47] No way.
[00:38:48] "Oh, dude, I think you did this."
[00:38:50] - So it only took the jury 71 minutes to sentence him
[00:38:53] to death by electrocution.
[00:38:55] - And honestly, like that first hour could have been
[00:38:57] like when lunch came.
[00:38:58] It's an 11-minute deal.
[00:38:59] It sounds like he did get official pixie stick packaging.
[00:39:03] He said he's stapled it again.
[00:39:04] So pixie stick was out there making massive candy.
[00:39:07] - I'm actually kind of surprised that this didn't lead
[00:39:09] to like, you know how when things get associated
[00:39:11] with a crime or something, like a lot of times
[00:39:14] they go out of business or it's like bad PR.
[00:39:16] Pixie sticks, I feel like when we were kids at least,
[00:39:18] still super popular.
[00:39:20] - It never didn't feel like eating chalk.
[00:39:22] It's like doing a cinnamon challenge
[00:39:24] where like your throat did close up
[00:39:26] if you like slammed on a pixie stick.
[00:39:27] - Yeah.
[00:39:28] - But no, they're delightful.
[00:39:29] - Damn dude, during his execution,
[00:39:31] a crowd of 300 demonstrators gathered outside the prison
[00:39:33] to cheer and some yelled trick or treat.
[00:39:36] - That's amazing.
[00:39:37] - During the execution, which is pretty, I mean, god damn,
[00:39:40] that's cold.
[00:39:41] I mean, he deserves it, but that's fucking cold.
[00:39:43] - They're looking for something to do.
[00:39:44] I watch a lot of schlock horror movies
[00:39:46] and every horror movie where it's like,
[00:39:48] oh, 30 people came to this lethal injection
[00:39:51] or this fucking electrocution.
[00:39:53] It's always like a curtain opens and there's 30 people.
[00:39:56] - Yeah, they weren't inside watching it, I don't know.
[00:39:58] - But still, I just mean like there was a time
[00:40:00] when that was like, what are you doing Saturday?
[00:40:02] - Yeah.
[00:40:03] - We're gonna go watch an execution.
[00:40:05] - Yeah.
[00:40:05] - It was definitely, it seemed like certain places
[00:40:08] people had that on the healed to do list.
[00:40:10] This guy is a fucking scumbag, get this.
[00:40:12] His last words, he didn't say anything
[00:40:14] about killing his own kid.
[00:40:15] He said, these were his last words.
[00:40:17] After eating a last meal that really pushes the boundaries
[00:40:21] of how much you should be allowed to order.
[00:40:23] - Did he say it pushes the boundaries
[00:40:24] or you, that's your commentary?
[00:40:26] - That's my commentary.
[00:40:26] - Okay.
[00:40:27] - I am fully against death penalty in all instances.
[00:40:30] - I am not against in all instances.
[00:40:32] If they have like footage, this guy is pretty close.
[00:40:35] Like killing your own kid in cold blood for money
[00:40:37] is close to the worst thing you could do.
[00:40:39] I just mean like, I'm bored, if it's not circumstantial.
[00:40:41] If it's like, we have video of you stabbing someone
[00:40:43] in the face, it's like, all right, audio's.
[00:40:45] - We're not supposed to get political.
[00:40:46] I'm uncomfortable with the idea
[00:40:48] that the state executes anyone.
[00:40:50] - Okay, sure.
[00:40:50] - My main point by this is this guy ordered
[00:40:52] a fucking cheesecake factory worth of a last meal.
[00:40:55] He ordered a T-bone steak, French fries and ketchup,
[00:40:58] whole kurtle corn, sweet peas,
[00:41:00] lettuce and tomato salad with egg and French dressing,
[00:41:03] I see sweetener, saltines, Boston cream pie and rolls.
[00:41:08] - I'll tell you what, you know how you get them back
[00:41:09] is you just put arsenic in all that.
[00:41:12] (both laugh)
[00:41:13] - Yeah, there's so much food here.
[00:41:17] (both moaning)
[00:41:17] - His last words, I won't read this whole thing.
[00:41:20] - His last words were, is there arsenic in this?
[00:41:22] (both laughing)
[00:41:23] - Oh fuck, no, his last words were just saying
[00:41:25] that this is wrong, that he's being killed.
[00:41:27] He forgives anyone who's taking part in any way
[00:41:30] in his death and he apologizes to anyone he offended
[00:41:33] 39 years just as he forgives anyone who offended him in any way. Never mention the high road. Yeah, he never mentions that like I
[00:41:41] 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
[00:41:49] How do you see this going? It's like hey man about four days before you killed your kids
[00:41:53] You called every chemical supply store in the state asking for enough cyanide to kill between four and five children look
[00:42:01] I love my kid. I don't want him to end up an invalid
[00:42:03] I want to end up dead and also with that. I'm gonna go on a Hawaiian trip by a couple novelty watches
[00:42:08] Like this is and he's surprised he got fucking found out. Yeah, this guy sucks
[00:42:14] Ronald McDonald rotten hell Ronald O'Brien get out of here
[00:42:18] You go out of here unless you know your kids are grandkids are fans of the show in which case, you know
[00:42:22] Is it you kind of got a bum rap? Yeah?
[00:42:24] Wait, no no, you didn't get a bum wrap oh man
[00:42:30] Fuck him we like that you listen, but your grandfather is a piece of shit. I guess that's true
[00:42:35] Sorry, okay, so this case in 1974
[00:42:37] happened almost simultaneously with when Richard Trubo published the PTA magazine article that coined all of this Halloween
[00:42:45] Sadism since 1985 though a writer named Joel best has been
[00:42:50] Researching and rebutting all the panics that have sprung up around these rumors now if you google Joel best his author photo is
[00:42:57] Him ripping out of a life size Hershey bar with a really insane smile on his face
[00:43:01] I don't trust him at all so we can keep an eye on Joel best, too
[00:43:07] Hold on. I don't know if you're gonna be able to see this ad. This is what Joel best looks like
[00:43:10] murdering a Hershey bar from the inside bursting out from it like a
[00:43:14] larva is in some sort of Hershey sleeping bag that he's unzipped and it was like hey
[00:43:20] I know you thought this was a Hershey bar, but much like the material I write. It's not what you thought
[00:43:25] Yeah, he has done the research and I don't have the most up-to-date data
[00:43:30] He hasn't updated his website in a while. Oh no
[00:43:34] He's busy
[00:43:36] impregnating and bursting chest burst or style out of candy bars
[00:43:40] He's asked to impregnate them
[00:43:41] I don't want to give away like how media works
[00:43:43] I think he just zips himself up and it was like take photo when I come out of this between
[00:43:48] 1958 and 2012 he only managed to identify
[00:43:52] 92 incidents of Halloween Sadism any more than one it just is a lot right
[00:43:56] But even though he hasn't detailed the story behind each of these incidents
[00:44:00] He does emphasize that the stories are rare and almost never result even an injury much less death
[00:44:07] I couldn't find whether or not he was including stories like we talked about with the razor blade apples
[00:44:12] Whether these were stories that seem like the kids were possibly doing it for attention from their parents or whatever
[00:44:18] And here's what I want to talk about next Joel best has done a really good job
[00:44:21] I feel like almost every Halloween he comes out and talks about you know
[00:44:25] How these panics whether it's weed gummies or meth in the candy or razor blades in the candy
[00:44:30] It's mostly rumor and lore
[00:44:32] We'll get into this in a future episode for people
[00:44:35] I'm sure we'll be excited for some reason be excited to hear
[00:44:38] But you know I grew up with the Warren's yeah of the famous Warren's yeah
[00:44:41] And that's how I spent my Halloween's was going to Warren's show. I don't know who's going to fucking Gerard best
[00:44:47] Ever his name is Joel Joel best show. That's a it's a worse use your time
[00:44:51] I don't yeah
[00:44:51] I mean maybe he's going around elementary schools and telling kids that it's cool. Don't worry about it
[00:44:57] Just bursts not a Hershey packaging being like what up kids
[00:45:00] Looking at his the chart on his website from 58 to 2012 most years are between zero incidents and like two or three incidents
[00:45:08] There's a couple of pops
[00:45:10] 70 and 71 have 10 and 14 incidents respectively I will say I have to look this up
[00:45:15] But like the 70s was a grizzly time like Times Square was its grossest
[00:45:20] I think son of Sam was in the 70s a lot of serial killers
[00:45:23] I think the like Atlanta child murders was in the 70s
[00:45:27] It just seems like whatever planet causes nonsense retrograde bullshit
[00:45:32] I don't know what you believe in but like I'd be interested to see what astrologist
[00:45:36] grid Wisconsin's was going on. Well, yeah, I mean I there was a run. So 64 was three 65 was one
[00:45:43] 66 is five
[00:45:45] 67 is four
[00:45:46] 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
[00:45:54] Until this one I think is interesting
[00:45:56] 1982 stands out is having 12 incidents
[00:46:00] But 1982 was also the year that there was the Tylenol poisoning which was a big case
[00:46:05] It's the reason that there's tamper proof seals on all medicine and food now
[00:46:09] Oh wow, he was going around and injecting
[00:46:12] poisons into Tylenol the thing that shows
[00:46:15] Yeah that it's closed and unopened you mean that extra
[00:46:18] Metallic thing that you also unpie definitely the metallic thing. I don't know when the childproof caps
[00:46:24] Yeah, cuz child proof wouldn't change being able to puncture it was definitely like the sealed packaging
[00:46:29] Wasn't a thing so pills were just raw dog in this air. Prior to that got you yeah
[00:46:34] So in 82 it kind of makes sense because that was already a fear that things that the store were being poisoned
[00:46:39] So that doesn't super surprise me and the rest of it is like zeros and ones the whole way up to 2012
[00:46:44] So here's the thing there have been a number of stories reported in local news about things found in
[00:46:53] Candy especially in recent years that is more than just scare that that reaches the level of
[00:46:59] Somebody actually reporting on somebody finding something terrible in there Halloween candy
[00:47:05] So I have this kind of idea that so much of local news is like it can happen to you news
[00:47:11] It's like oh you can get pushed in front of a subway don't go to New York City you can whatever
[00:47:15] By that virtue
[00:47:18] Halloween must be the fucking Super Bowl for local news cuz it's just like oh man
[00:47:23] This is one of these times a year. We're like everyone's gonna listen this could happen to you
[00:47:26] Well, that's how these stories of I found a razor blade
[00:47:28] 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
[00:47:35] You call them or they catch wind of it. Yeah, they're gonna run it
[00:47:38] 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
[00:47:44] Not necessarily how the incident went down and usually it's just being reported by a parent who says my kid found this
[00:47:51] With that being said Ed would you like to hear about?
[00:47:55] Some of the horrible fucked up things that people have found in their Halloween candy for real
[00:48:00] I would because I actually just broke into the bag of Halloween candy
[00:48:03] We got for when kids come here and I'm eating it right now. So this is a perfect time great
[00:48:08] All right, so this is an article on food beast calm the seven most dangerous things that people have found in their candy
[00:48:16] Number one. Well, I guess these aren't really numbered. It's just seven of them
[00:48:19] So listener we leave it to you to decide the order of the rankings the ranking of danger a needle in a Snickers bar
[00:48:27] According to the Sun Journal in Auburn, Maine a man found a sewing needle in a fun-sized Snicker bar that one of his kids
[00:48:34] received over the weekend and the man who found it said that outside of urban legends
[00:48:38] He thought that this had never actually happened now. I will say this is from November 2nd
[00:48:44] 2014 the Sun Journal in Maine when you click the link the article is not found
[00:48:49] So I can't give you any more information other than what food beast tells us on that one
[00:48:55] But apparently there was a needle in the candy bar now again Joel best has documented some of these things
[00:49:00] And I don't have his numbers for 2014 cuz they cut off in 2012
[00:49:04] But there is this pattern of people who have bitten into things, but didn't receive medical treatment
[00:49:10] There was no real injury. There was just ouch. What was that? Oh a needle?
[00:49:14] I feel like it's crazy enough though that like people probably would go to the local news
[00:49:18] I don't know how many people are biting into needles and just keeping it to themselves
[00:49:21] Well, so this next one is a bigger question. This next one is meth
[00:49:26] How do you even fucking know how do you decipher that recording to food beast the meth experts food beast according to the
[00:49:33] 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
[00:49:42] You know how when you get those bags to have like official Halloween markings on them
[00:49:46] And they just call it says Halloween was it in one of those or was it just like a baggy of?
[00:49:50] Meth and phetamines so again when you click the link the link is dead. Wow, okay
[00:49:55] I suspect that these stories may have been published and pulled down upon further review like it's all bullshit
[00:50:01] Turns out her dad maybe got arrested for making meth or her neighbor did
[00:50:05] I think it's amazing if you do travel around with drugs that are all in like official Halloween marked bags
[00:50:12] In that way if you get pulled over or whatever is like, what do you got here sir?
[00:50:15] It's like I don't know it just got we just got it trick-or-treating and it was like this is this is meth and phetamines
[00:50:20] He's like that's fucked up that you should sir. You should take that officer like that's definitely not mine
[00:50:25] Yeah, number three razor blades back to the goddamn razor blade I should pop into this for a second here
[00:50:31] I was doing restoration on the house with my dad last year and it seems like razor blades had a real fucking hey day in the past
[00:50:38] We're like now. I don't know about you. I don't shave with a razor blade
[00:50:41] I just like trim my beard or whatever yeah
[00:50:43] But these razor blades aren't even the kind that you shave with these are like box cutter razor blade
[00:50:47] So I think that was in razor blades
[00:50:49] For I or two the modern day razor blade
[00:50:52] It was just like you put a box cutter razor blade and you like twisted into the top of a razor into a shaving razor
[00:50:58] shaving razor
[00:50:58] Yeah
[00:50:59] Okay, and the reason I feel like this is 100% the case is there used to be in bathrooms a
[00:51:04] slot in the wall for used razor blades and then when my dad and I were storing this house
[00:51:09] We broke down the wall between the bathroom in the kitchen between the two studs
[00:51:13] We're just like three feet of razor blades the box cutter style razor blades that over the years from like the 20s on
[00:51:21] What yeah, so in the bathroom
[00:51:23] It had a slot in the like tiling that said used razor blades or just razor blades or whatever and you know
[00:51:28] since the 20s I mean how this house was built or prior when they would use up razor blades or they were dull
[00:51:33] Or no longer sharp, they would just put them in the wall in that slot
[00:51:37] Which turns out just lands between the like studs in a fucking wall
[00:51:41] And so yeah
[00:51:42] There was just a ton of ton of ton of ton of razor blades
[00:51:44] And then I've since noticed that some very old apartments of friends of mine here in LA that they have those slots
[00:51:50] And I'm like well
[00:51:50] 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
[00:51:57] That's true. Okay, this link actually loads
[00:51:59] This is again from 2014 in Made in North Carolina parents in the North Carolina town of Made in claimed
[00:52:06] We've found a razor blade partially embedded in Halloween candy
[00:52:09] Ws or CTV reports that the child was not hurt
[00:52:12] But police are taking the matter seriously
[00:52:14] Officers said the parents were checking their children's Halloween candy when they found a small metallic blade inside the wrapper of a
[00:52:20] Twix Mini candy bar this is a question for you and it might be for later
[00:52:23] 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?
[00:52:27] No, I never it's funny. I never used a pillowcase and it wasn't until later in life. You're too good
[00:52:32] You're too good for pillowcases. No, I just never realized that people used pillowcases
[00:52:36] I only did pillowcases. I want to say I always use like one of those plastic pumpkin
[00:52:40] You can't get enough candy in that I don't know man
[00:52:42] That's the first part of the question the second part of the question is did your parents do anything?
[00:52:47] My parents never checked for anything. They were just like don't eat too much out of the pillowcase. Yeah, no
[00:52:52] I mean my parents weirdly have become the kind of people like I grew up in the woods
[00:52:57] 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
[00:53:04] 7th grade your parents were taking you trick or treating through into middle school no no no my parents
[00:53:10] I'm saying my parents took me trick or treating up until you know fourth or fifth grade and then sixth seventh grade
[00:53:15] I went on my own I feel like that was probably similar to me
[00:53:17] But I don't think they ever were like checking my candy or concerned about anything yeah
[00:53:22] My parents are more concerned about asthma tax. Well. Yeah, you had the the pilgrim disease
[00:53:27] It's not a pill. It's it's I don't know. I think it's a little exist group out there, baby
[00:53:30] Yeah, there was never any real concern
[00:53:32] I remember there was one house an older woman who lived in the neighborhood who didn't give out candy
[00:53:37] 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
[00:53:44] That's the like I know stick with the program you give out many or king size treats and we keep moving
[00:53:50] She was always chill. She was really nice. No one said she wasn't nice
[00:53:54] No one's saying that doing something a little different isn't potentially great
[00:53:59] I'm just saying don't put yourself in a position to be like avoid that house
[00:54:03] But my parents know we're never particularly concerned continuing in the food beast article
[00:54:07] Shard of glass in Buffalo, New York
[00:54:10] Police received a complaint of glass found inside a tootsie pop the woman found the glass while celebrating beggars night with her children
[00:54:16] I'm sorry. What what night beggars night? That's what they call Halloween. It honestly that's an apt description of it
[00:54:22] But it is weird according to the article it is quote some kind of East Coast thing
[00:54:28] Which is the same as trick-or-treat I am from the East Coast
[00:54:32] We both are and I don't think either of us have ever heard of beggars night
[00:54:34] Well, so
[00:54:36] Unsurprisingly when you click the news link on this one, it's another 404 page not found God
[00:54:41] Tutsipop lobbyists. We're like we got to get this glass talk out of here. Yeah number four bullets
[00:54:47] Just bullets
[00:54:50] According to K f o r an Ohio woman found bullets inside
[00:54:54] Four boxes of her son's milk duds each box contained three bullets for a 20 caliber handgun
[00:54:59] And worst of all the candy was distributed by the kids preschool a lot of supplied Shane questions
[00:55:05] That's one question. Okay when you click this link it opens pebbles, Ohio pebbles
[00:55:13] You're disgusted by the name of that out pebbles yeah, it should be called bullets Ohio
[00:55:19] Based on the story people's Ohio says she thought it was safe when her son's preschool handed out little bags of candy to the students
[00:55:26] Christy campbell said her four-year-old son land in opened a box of milk duds and asked what's this?
[00:55:31] Campbell says she took the boxroom and started going through the other milk dead boxes in the bags
[00:55:35] I opened the second box more bullets. I opened up the third box more bullets. I opened up the fourth box more bullets
[00:55:42] I'm like that's not a coincidence. That's not a mistake. She said honestly though in today's dollars
[00:55:49] Bullets to milk duds. She's making out like a bandit true put these up on eBay
[00:55:53] Campbell was furious because the boxes of ammunition came from her son's preschool
[00:55:58] I just want answers. I want to know why it was in my kid's street bag
[00:56:01] I want to know who did it chief Robert music with the peoples police department music like music
[00:56:08] What an amazing lineage bobby music with the peoples people's police department says detectives are investigating the case and the
[00:56:17] Prosecutors office will determine if any charges are filed. All right, so that one at least wasn't taken down
[00:56:21] So there were bullets then there's nobody who said this is bullshit
[00:56:24] So it's still up on the web there were definitely bullets. Yeah unclear where they came from the next one on food
[00:56:30] Beast's nails and staples sure in Spokane, Washington a woman found several metal objects inside the candy here children picked up on Halloween
[00:56:37] Her son and a friend were munching on the candy and the friend bit into a nail the nail poked him
[00:56:42] But didn't cause major harm as they search through the rest of the candies several pieces had nails staples and watch parts inside
[00:56:50] Wow like gears and stuff. Yes well and this link also is still up. I've been a parent for 15 years
[00:56:57] I've never had this happen before
[00:56:59] This is the third or fourth time you were like my kids found watch parts in there
[00:57:04] No, like I can build a Rolex at this point from discarded watch parts
[00:57:09] Yeah, that's something to be concerned about but the fact that you were like listen
[00:57:12] I've been sending these little rascals out every Halloween and they've never come back with weird gears
[00:57:17] I think that's the normal that you want if it happens once then just you know
[00:57:21] I guess put it under your pillow for the fucking gear theory to come around other than that like
[00:57:26] Yeah, just be grateful that every other year was not filled with nails
[00:57:29] Yeah, so then the last one on this list who gives a fuck a wedding ring, which we're not gonna cover
[00:57:34] It's just some lady accidentally dropped her wedding ring inside a kid's Halloween bag
[00:57:38] But that's not like they bitten to a Mars bar. No she's just wrapped it in a bag
[00:57:43] Although okay. I do think the writer of this article might have some trauma
[00:57:47] Because they said on the surface a wedding ring doesn't sound like a dangerous thing to find your candy bag
[00:57:52] But I'd argue marriage can be dangerous. Wow, he says that yeah, that's a level of commentary
[00:57:58] We don't need in our someone found a wedding and then the only other one
[00:58:02] This isn't in that article, but according to the Minneapolis star Tribune incident in
[00:58:08] 2000 happened and this actually resulted in a criminal charge a
[00:58:13] 49-year-old man named James Joseph Smith was charged with one count of adulterating a substance with intent to cause death
[00:58:19] Harmor illness after it was determined he put needles into a Snickers bar he handed them out to children on Halloween a 14 year-old
[00:58:26] Was pricked by a needle, but did not require medical attention. So other people have done this
[00:58:32] It seems rare and it seems not particularly dangerous or deadly if you get in trouble for it
[00:58:39] If you're like oh, we've we've established that the Snickers came from his street this house
[00:58:45] What have you like you're being a piece of shit and people should be able to beat you up a little bit
[00:58:49] Yeah, I think this is exactly the kind of thing James J Smith 49 was charged with felony
[00:58:55] Increditation which means to make something impure
[00:58:58] Apparently it's something you can get charged with Minneapolis, but he was found incompetent for trial
[00:59:03] Oh what and was created to an institution as mentally ill well
[00:59:08] We can't beat that guy up at all, but yeah
[00:59:10] He should be found a little nuts. I'd be interested to find what kind of like composition notebooks with crazy shit are written in his house for sure
[00:59:17] Yeah, I mean I don't think he was a well person
[00:59:20] Yeah, most people aren't doing this unless you're found
[00:59:22] Comping in you're found to be a lunatic. I think most people want to keep Halloween pretty pretty cool
[00:59:29] Alright, so we've covered a lot of Halloween fears on this episode
[00:59:33] Let's get into the fear tier where are we placing Halloween sadism on the fear tier?
[00:59:37] I'm gonna go ahead and put it real low like a wrong one because a I don't go trick or treating anymore
[00:59:42] So I'm not worried about it be I do believe that 99% of any of this shit
[00:59:48] It's either you use as an alibi for someone trying to kill their family or it's like kids are trying to excite their friends
[00:59:54] And being like got band-aids of my Reese's and then the kids tell their parents and it's like oh fuck
[00:59:58] Should we not let their kids go out? It's a little bit like mass hysteria
[01:00:01] Memish bullshit. I just feel like because it is a day that seems kind of sacred and it's similar to Christmas in that way
[01:00:10] I think most people 99.9% of people are not trying to hurt anyone on that day
[01:00:15] Like look how many 404s we have just going through that list of the seven craziest
[01:00:19] Like I think a lot of this shit's retracted after they come out with it because it's like oh it wasn't it
[01:00:24] Was just someone trying to get attention. Yeah, and it's getting harder every year for kids to be kids
[01:00:28] So to have a day where kids can be kids
[01:00:31] I just feel like people aren't trying to fuck that up agreed very low on the fear tier if this episode
[01:00:35] You know teaches anyone anything truly obviously take your own personal safety and your children's safety seriously
[01:00:42] But always especially around Halloween when you hear these urban legends and rumors
[01:00:47] You hear stories about anything dangerous or bad happening do the research take it with a grain of salt
[01:00:52] You are most likely perfectly safe of all nights of the year
[01:00:56] Don't step on your kids ability to have fun on Halloween. It's really cool. It's a great holiday and yeah, be not afraid
[01:01:03] So yeah, that's our show. Thank you for joining us for episode two
[01:01:06] Our biggest fear this week is waiting to see if our numbers go upward down for how many people are
[01:01:12] listening we have bigger fears than that we do have bigger fears. Well, yeah
[01:01:16] Let us know if you have any good Halloween stories if you have proof that something bad did happen on Halloween
[01:01:22] We'd love to hear about it not that we'd love to hear about it. We're sorry that you have that
[01:01:26] That happened, but also if you have your own urban legends from your town
[01:01:31] And let us know especially if a different
[01:01:33] Edvacola poison the waters apply in your town
[01:01:35] Yeah
[01:01:36] If you're a local boogie man instead of being called cropsy was called
[01:01:39] Edvacola because he was poisoning the water supply. We definitely want to hear from you
[01:01:43] We want to know more about the other edvacolas who really eat up the prime real estate in Google search results
[01:01:48] Yeah, so go open a candy bar go watch your favorite Halloween movie
[01:01:52] I'm Chris kolari and I'm Edvacola and this has been scared all the time
[01:01:56] We'll see you next week scared all the time. It's co-produced and written by Chris Kolari and Edvacola
[01:02:01] edited by Edvacola
[01:02:02] Additional support and keeper of sanity test fiefel our theme is the track scared by perpetual stew and Mr
[01:02:09] Disclaimer is
[01:02:11] No part of this show can be reproduced anywhere without permission copyright astonishing legends productions
[01:02:15] tonight we are in this together together
[01:02:19] There to go.