The Death of Timothy O’Bryan
On Halloween night in 1974, Texas, Timothy O’Bryan ingested Pixy Sticks supposedly given to him while he was out trick-or-treating and died an hour later. Police would discover traces of cyanide mixed with the sugar. Timothy’s father, Ronald O’Bryan, would later be arrested and executed for his son’s murder.
Eight-year-old Timothy, his younger sister Elizabeth, a neighborhood friend, and Timothy’s father Ronald rang the doorbell of the house of Courtney Melvin while trick-or-treating. The children moved to the next house when no one answered while Ronald stayed behind, according to Austin American-Statesman. He later produced Pixy Stix and gave some to each of the children. That night, Timothy ingested one of the Pixy Stix and began vomiting and convulsing after complaining of its bitter taste. He passed away an hour later, and police later discovered cyanide mixed in with the sweetened powder. Fortunately, authorities were able to quickly locate the rest of the candies given to the two other children, who had not yet ingested the poison, according to Listverse.
Ronald O’Bryan initially claimed that he had received the Pixy Stix from Melvin’s house after the children left, making Melvin a suspect in the murder. However, Melvin, who worked at Hobby Airport, didn’t return home from his supervisor shift until eleven p.m., and the hundreds of people he interacted with quickly produced an alibi, according to Austin American-Statesman. Suspicion turned to Ronald, who police discovered had taken out a ten-thousand-dollar life insurance policy on both Timothy and Elizabeth because of debts of one hundred thousand dollars he owned. Police also discovered scissors with bits of plastic at the O’Bryan house, matching the plastic on the candy, according to Vice. They also discovered O’Bryan once came into a store to buy cyanide but left when he was notified that he couldn’t buy more than five pounds of the poison. After O’Bryan’s arrest, the jury took less than an hour to convict him of the murder of his son.
Because of the nature of the crime, Ronald O’Bryan would be dubbed “Candyman,” according to Austin American-Statesman. Ten years later, in 1984, O’Bryan would be executed for the murder of Timothy.
