![]() She spoke in a clear, steady voice and kept her eyes averted from her husband.” O’Bryan, testifying in a trial that could send her husband to the electric chair, appeared cool and without emotion. The Associated Press captured her sentiment toward her husband during his trial. He wanted to pay off bills and then take a trip to Florida, she said. When her husband began talking about how they were going to spend the money after their son had just died, she became alarmed. After Timothy’s funeral, she learned he had spent another $108 on premiums for two more polices valued at $20,000 each. Although they were behind on some loan payments, she revealed that her husband had bought $10,000 of accidental life insurance policies for both of their children. Daynene O’Bryan told the jury that life with her husband bore a constant struggle with debt and financial pressure. For those attempted poisonings, O’Bryan was also charged with four counts of attempted murder.Īnd finally, Ronald’s own brother told the court that he “was a poor manager who had trouble keeping a job…and was in poor financial condition at the time of Timothy’s death.”ĭuring his trial held in May, 1975, these witnesses and his own wife testified against him. On the night of Halloween, friends who went with the O’Bryans reported Ronald had gone to one particular house alone, and was seen returning with Pixie Stix which he gave to his own children, and their two children and another neighborhood child. Since that was too much, O’Bryan politely backed out of the sale. Then, a chemical salesman testified that O’Bryan tried to purchase potassium cyanide but the only size they had available was their typical bulk size of five pounds. When the chemist inquired why he was asking these questions, O’Bryan replied that he was just curious, and nothing more. Two months before his son’s death, O’Bryan telephoned a friend who was a chemist asking about how he could get cyanide and how much would be fatal. Police were tight-lipped over their evidence but one week later a recorded grand jury hearing revealed there was little doubt he was behind the murder. On Monday, November 4, Ronald O’Bryan was arrested for the murder of his son. They also learned that he had recently taken out several life insurance policies on both of his children, and that his son was insured for $30,000 (the 2015 equivalent of $145,000 when adjusted for inflation). He couldn’t seem to locate the house although it was in a small area. ![]() During their search, five other poisoned Pixie Stix were found with children who had also gone trick-or-treating with the O’Bryans.Įarly in the investigation, Ronald’s “help” raised their suspicions. Ronald, an optician, aided police in their efforts to narrow down the location where the Pixie Stix were handed out. Parents followed his advice and threw all of their children’s candy away and the event helped to forever spoil a once popular children’s holiday. “If parents want their children to eat candy, let them go to the store and buy candy.” “It’s just not worth the risk,” the detective said. One local detective working the case told an Associated Press reporter that parents should get rid of all the Halloween candy collected by their children. ![]() News that a child had been poisoned to death exploded across Texas and the entire United States. His daughter, five-year-old Elizabeth, who also chose a the same candy before going to bed, still had it in her hand the next morning-unable to open it because of the staples that kept it shut. His son died ninety-minutes later at the hospital and by the next day, police had determined the Pixie Stix was full of cyanide. “He was in the bathroom convulsing, vomiting, and gasping and then suddenly he went limp.” ![]() “Thirty seconds after I left Tim’s room, I heard him cry to me, ‘Daddy, Daddy, my stomach hurts,’” Ronald later told reporters as he sobbed loudly. They both chose a large “Pixie Stix” they had received. Since there was a light rain falling, they only collected candy in a two-block area for half-an-hour before returning home.Īs he went to bed, Ronald agreed to let both of his children eat one piece of candy before they went to sleep. On Halloween night, 1974, Ronald O’Bryan took his eight-year-old-son, Timothy, and his daughter, trick-or-treating with some other neighborhood friends near their home in the Deer Park suburb of Houston.
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