The Man Who Killed Halloween

Halloween is a time of festivities, spooky decorations, horror movies, pumpkin carving,

and a favorite activity of many kids, trick-or-treating.

A custom with centuries-old origins that has only increased in popularity,

every year millions of people in multiple countries give out and receive candy around Halloween.

Most of this is done in good fun, as neighborhoods and community spread cheer and candy to children dressed in a multitude of costumes.

When dealing with food given to children by strangers, however,

there's always going to be an element of fear involved for some.

The concept of poisoned Halloween candy goes back a number of decades,

and as time went on, this fear has grown in prominence, with alternative trick or

treating events being created by communities, and various medical facilities offering free

x-ray scans of Halloween candy to look for poison and razor blades.

In 1959, in Fremont, California, a dentist named William Shine was charged with unlawfully dispensing a drug and endangering the lives of children after handing out candy-coated laxatives to trick-or-treaters.

In 1964, a woman in Long Island, New York, was annoyed with teenagers going around trick-or-treating,

believing them to be too old for the custom.

Instead of candy, she handed them packages containing dog biscuits, steel wool pads, and most notably, poisonous ant traps.

Although she remarked when she handed them out that it was a joke and no one was actually

harmed, she was still arrested for endangering children. In 1970, in Detroit, Michigan, a five-year-old

boy named Kevin Totson slipped into a coma and died after ingesting heroin that his family

said was in his Halloween candy.

It was later determined that the boy had actually found his uncle's heroin stash and ate it,

with the family lying to protect the uncle.

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