Ronald Clark O’Bryan – The Candy Man

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Ronald Clark O'Bryan is known as The Candy Man

On Halloween night 1974, Timothy O’Bryan headed out with his younger sister and father for a night of trick-or-treating fun.  Little did he know that this would be his last Halloween.  Timothy fell victim to cyanide poisoning.  Who was responsible and why?  Listen to the story of Ronald Clark O’Bryan who became known as the man who ruined Halloween.

Trick or Treater on Halloween
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Candyman was a movie released in 1992 starring Virginia Madsen and Tony Todd. The movie was a supernatural horror film based upon an urban legend about the ghost of a black man who was killed for fathering a child with a white woman after the civil war. When it’s discovered by the woman’s father he rounded up a group of men to hunt down the man. They cut open his chest, placed honey all over him, and then covered him in bees.

The urban legend was that if you say Candyman five times in a mirror he will appear and kill the summoner.

This episode is not about that Candyman, but the real Candy Man who is also known as the Man that ruined Halloween.

Location

Our story takes place in Deer Park and Pasadena, Texas which is within the  Houston metro area. Houston is the most populated city in all of Texas. It is the sixth most populated city in all of North America. Houston was founded in 1836 and named after General Sam Houston. He had won Texas’s independence from Mexico at the Battle of San Jacinto.

Deer Park was named in 1892 for the large number of deer that used to roam the Gulf plains.

Halloween Night 1974

It was a cold and misty Thursday night on Halloween in 1974, but the O’Bryan children were not about to let a little rain stop them. The O’Bryans’ were friends with the Bates’ family. They decided to have their children trick-or-treat together that evening after dinner at the Bates’ home and then go around the neighborhood of Bowling Green in Pasadena, Texas.

The O’Bryan family consisted of Ronald O’Bryan, an optician who worked for Texas State Optical, his wife, Daynene, and their two young children.

  • Timothy – age 8
  • Elizabeth – age 5

Ronald O’Bryan had purchased his kids Halloween costumes two weeks before and had been talking about how excited he was to take them trick-or-treating. Although he hadn’t really ever been that excited in the past. After dinner, both fathers, Ronald and Jim Bates escorted the children around the neighborhood for a night of Halloween fun

In addition to Timothy and Elizabeth, there was Mark and Kim Bates. Kim decided to stay home. Ronald wore his optician’s lab coat. The group set out while the rain began to fall. Their plans changed and they decided to only go up and down two streets in the area. The men agreed that Bates would stay on the sidewalk while O’Bryan accompanied the children up to the various front doors

The Melvin’s

Soon, the group arrived at the home of the Melvin’s (Courtney & Carolyn) at 4112 Donerail Street. There were no lights on, but O’Bryan and the kids went up to the door anyways. After knocking and not getting an answer the children moved on, but O’Bryan remained behind for no more than 30 seconds. He caught up with the group saying someone had come to the door after the kids took off.

In his hand, he held at least two giant pixy stix, 22 inches in length. He stated the “rich neighbors” were handing out the good stuff. Pixy sticks are a sweet and sour powdered candy that comes in a plastic or paper straw wrapper. There is no nutritional value just sugar

O’Bryan offered to hold onto the pixy stix for the kids until they were done. When the party got back to the Bates’ residence he gave a pixy stix to his two children, the Bates’ two children, and handed the other one to an 11-year-old neighbor boy, Whitney Parker, who came to the door trick-or-treating. The boy had told O’Bryan that he went to his church where O’Bryan sang in the choir.

The Night Turns Deadly

When the O’Bryans’ returned home, Daynene left to go visit a friend leaving Ronald with the kids. He told the kids that they can have one piece of candy around 9 pm before they go to bed. Timothy reached for a lollipop but was told by O’Bryan to try the pixy stix. For some reason, none of the powder would come out of the straw

O’Bryan rolls the stick in his hands to loosen it up for Timothy. Soon after tasting the powdered sugar Timothy remarks that it has a bitter taste. Ronald gives Timothy some Kool-Aid to wash it down. He soon is telling his dad that his stomach hurts.

Soon Timothy is running to the bathroom where he begins to vomit. Suddenly he starts convulsing and goes limp in his father’s arms. Ronald O’Bryan called for an ambulance saying his son had eaten poisoned candy. The ambulance arrived within minutes. Upon arrival, O’Bryan attempted to explain the events to the ambulance attendants.

He claimed he was feeling ill and ran off to the bathroom but refused any treatment. Unfortunately, Timothy died within the hour after reaching the hospital. Fluids that had aspirated from his stomach at the hospital contained 16 milligrams of cyanide.

Detective Lanier

Rookie detective Bill Lanier, who had been with the Pasadena Police Department for less than a year caught the case. It was his first murder investigation. He would begin by interviewing Timothy’s family members, starting with his father, Ronald O’Bryan. O’Bryan told the detective that he had been handed the giant pixy styx from a home in the same subdivision as the Bates home.

Lanier described Ronald O’Bryan as a “big guy, but he talked soft – almost feminine.” Although Ronald was not visibly upset Detective Lanier had no reason to believe he was involved. Lanier and several other detectives quickly tracked down the other four pixy stix. One was with Elizabeth. Two with Bates’ children and one went to the boy who knocked on the door.

Detectives discovered that he had fallen asleep with the pixy stix clutched in his hand, unopened with the top stapled shut. None of the other children had tasted any of the pixy stix.

The sticks were sent to Dr. Jachimczyk, a medical examiner who also performed Timothy’s autopsy. His death was ruled a homicide due to potassium cyanide poisoning. Potassium cyanide is a colorless salt-like substance that appears like sugar and is highly toxic and has a bitter taste. Timothy’s blood tests showed the level of cyanide in his blood to be 0.4 milligrams. A fatal human dose is somewhere between 0.2 and 0.3 milligrams of cyanide.

Sealed By A Staple

Looking at the giant pixy styx showed that while one end of the styx had a proper heat seal, the other end was sealed by a staple. The manufacturer reported that the ends of the plastic straws are always heat-sealed, never stapled.

Each pixy styx, other than Timothys, would show that the top two inches of each one had been packed with fatal doses of cyanide. Timothy’s pixy styx was missing the first four inches. No cyanide was found in the remaining powder.

On November 1, 1974, O’Bryan was busy arranging funeral plans for Timothy. In his discussion with the funeral director, he discovered that he would need a separate death certificate to claim any insurance money. O’Bryan ordered six death certificates. In the days after Timothy’s death, Ronald O’Bryan would sing a special song in memory of Timothy during a service held at the Second Baptist Church in Pasadena. He would also tell reporters that “I have my peace in knowing that Tim is in heaven now.”

Jim Bates would say years later that he suspected Ronald was involved in his son’s death. When O’Bryan decided to sing a song at the funeral he walked right by Timothy’s open casket without even bothering to look down. Bates would say that O’Bryan did not seem to be upset at all.

Candy Fear

In the days after Timothy’s death, the Pasadena Police Department would put out a notice that if any parents had suspicious candy or candy that looked strange they could bring it into the department. What happened next resulted in an entire room full of candy and a drop in trick-or-treating for the next few years. Timothy’s death had confirmed parents’ worst fears about someone using a childhood tradition for nefarious means.

The stranger danger, the person who wants to harm others with their deadly Halloween pranks. Deadly pranks such as spiking candy were only an unproven rumor at that time in the United States. No documented cases only urban legend.

I Don’t Know

While the lab was working on testing Detective Lanier was trying to nail down which house Ronald O’Bryan had gotten the pixy stix from. The investigation was happening very quickly with all of it unfolding over the next couple of days. What raised the detective’s suspicions was that O’Bryan couldn’t give them a straight answer.

First, he says “I don’t know what home.” Next, “I don’t know what street.”

Detectives would come to find out that the group had only gone trick-or-treating on two streets due to the rainy weather. Finally, O’Bryan told detectives that he didn’t actually see a person just an arm sticking out of a door. Detectives took O’Bryan back to the Pasadena neighborhood and walked him up and down the streets where he had gone trick or treating with his children. Finally, O’Bryan pointed out the house he claimed he got the pixy stix from.

Nobody is Home

The house that O’Bryan pointed out belonged to Courtney Melvin. He worked as an air traffic controller shift supervisor at Hobby Airport. O’Bryan claimed it was Melvin who handed him the candy. What O’Bryan didn’t know was that Melvin didn’t get home from work until 11 pm on Halloween night.

Melvin left for work at 1:30 pm and worked until 10:30 pm when he returned home. Detectives found that over 200 people vouched for Melvin’s whereabouts that night. Detectives didn’t think that Melvin could have done what O’Bryan was saying. Carolyn Melvin was home for trick-or-treat night but had run out of candy by 6:45 pm. After that time she turned off the outside lights and did not answer the door. The Melvins also didn’t hand out any giant pixy styx that night.

Detectives walked the route the group took that night to try to determine if any homes had handed out giant pixy styx. They did not find any.

Big Trouble

Detectives decided to look more into Ronald O’Bryan’s background. Why would this seemingly upstanding citizen, who appeared to be a loving family man involved in his local church do something like this? What they found would definitely give them pause.

Detectives found a spotty work history with O’Bryan having held 21 jobs in a 10 year period. The O’Bryan’s were in massive debt to the point that they had to sell their home and were leasing a townhouse. $6,000 from the home sale went to pay off the most pressing debt, but there were still more outstanding bills. There was a delinquent loan of $2,000 as well as other outstanding loans. They owed $800 to the government, possibly the IRS.

O’Bryan was eight months behind on his $149 monthly car payment which was close to being repossessed. He even tried to get a loan of over $1,700 from the Medical & Dental Insurance Bureau but was turned down. On October 23, 1974 (8 days before the murder) O’Bryan got an extension from the Medical Branch Credit Union informing them that he expected to come into a large sum of money before the end of 1974. O’Bryan also told his fellow co-workers that he planned to quit his job on November 15, 1974. The company was glad to hear this since they wanted to fire him for theft.

Insurance Policies On The Kids

Ronald O’Bryan had also purchased various life insurance policies on his children in the months leading up to Halloween. The most recent policy was secured 30 days before Halloween. The policies totaled $60,000.

$60,000 in 2020 would equate to over $316,000.

Daynene O’Bryan was unaware of the exact amount of life insurance Ronald had taken out on the children. All she knew of was a $10,000 policy each of them had from a plan Ronald had taken out when he joined the “New Outlooks Club” which offered policies for a few dollars each month. These policies were enacted in January 1974.

Daynene didn’t agree that they needed policies on the children since it was an unnecessary burden to their already tight budget. Daynene didn’t know anything about the additional $20,000 life insurance policies that Ronald took out on the children in early October 1974. O’Bryan was earning $150 weekly from his job, but the family was said to be over $100,000 in debt. In 2020, that amounts to over $527,000.

Detectives also discovered that the day after Timothy’s death he had called the insurance company about collecting on Timothy’s policy.

Do You Have Any Cyanide?

If that didn’t cause detectives to look at O’Bryan more closely what they discovered next really put a spotlight on him. In August of 1974, O’Bryan put in a work request to Texas State Optical about purchasing some cyanide for the purpose of cleaning gold frames. This was an unusual request because in the optical field cyanide had not been used for over twenty years.

Three weeks later O’Bryan put in another request and was referred to someone higher up in the company than the branch manager. In September 1974, O’Bryan called a friend, Bobby Terry, who worked for Arco Chemical Company. O’Bryan told Terry that he was taking a chemical course at San Jacinto College and he didn’t feel his teacher knew enough about the numerous types of cyanide and could he ask him some questions. The questions ranged from where one could purchase cyanide to what would be considered a fatal dose. He also wanted to know what procedures were used to detect unknown chemicals in a deceased body.

O’Bryan also continued to discuss the use of cyanide with his fellow employees regarding its uses in their field to what amount would be fatal. Right before Halloween O’Bryan had gone to Curtain Matheson Scientific, a chemical outlet in the Houston area. Salesperson David Lee Jackson waited on O’Bryan when he inquired about buying a small amount of cyanide. When told that the 5 pounds, the smallest amount Scientific sold, was too large the men talked about other sources for obtaining a small amount of cyanide.

O’Bryan boasted to some of his co-workers that “his financial health” would soon turn around.

Why’d Ya Do It

In addition to inquiring about cashing in Timothy’s life insurance policy right after his death, O’Bryan told Jim Bates that he was going to be purchasing a new home. The men talked about price and location. O’Bryan asking Bates not to tell his wife about their discussion.

Detectives had enough information and began to interview O’Bryan at the station. They confronted him with what they discovered. Detective Lanier recounted years later that he could see when O’Bryan gave up. He would just nod his head agreeing to what the detective was saying, but he never admitted to poisoning his son.

What left detectives slightly confused was O’Bryan’s plan. Did he just want to kill his son or both of his children? Were the other three children collateral damage? Jim Bates testified at trial that O’Bryan had leaped over the coffee table in his living room to prevent his 8-year-old son from eating from the pixy stix he had given him.

Detectives also discovered that on Halloween, O’Bryan was seen by a customer he would work with later that day. The customer saw O’Bryan in the parking lot carrying a stapler and a bag of unknown contents. When it was time for their appointment the customer remembered that their discussion was about cyanide and what would be considered lethal amounts.

Police Theory

The police theory was that O’Bryan laced the giant pixy styx with cyanide to kill his two children and collect on their life insurance policies. The other children were collateral damage and to aid in a cover-up of his crime. Detectives believed that O’Bryan cut off one end of the pixy styx, removed some of the candy and put the cyanide in its place and bent the end over, placed the label back on, and then stapled it shut.

Ronald O’Bryan was arrested on November 5, 1974, and charged with one count of capital murder and four counts of attempted murder

The Death Penalty

Death Penalty

The state of Texas planned to seek the death penalty and charged O’Bryan with capital murder. This was due in part to O’Bryan attempting to profit from the murder of his son. O’Bryan pleaded not guilty to all counts. His trial began on May 5, 1975.

The prosecution was lead by Mike Hinton and presented all of the physical evidence found by detectives. Daynene O’Bryan testified against her husband. She testified that she was unaware of the additional insurance policies that O’Bryan had taken out on their children. In addition, she had no idea the family was coming into a large sum of money by the end of 1974.

Jim Bates testified that when he remained on the sidewalk outside of Melvin’s home he did not see anyone answer the door, but did see O’Bryan holding two pixy stix in his hand. He also testified that although O’Bryan appeared grief-stricken in public, privately he was very unemotional. Bates testified that O’Bryan had told him that he “didn’t see how they can pin Timothy’s death on anybody.”

O’Bryan’s sister-in-law and brother-in-law testified that on the day of Timothy’s funeral O’Bryan had talked about using some of the money from Timothy’s insurance policy to take a long vacation.

The Mad Poisoner

Ronald O’Bryan testified on his own behalf claiming he was innocent. His defense tried to play on the urban legend of the “mad poisoner” who taints candy with poison or needles. Specifically candy apples with razor blades as seen in Halloween 2. Unfortunately for the defense, there were no documented cases of poisoned Halloween candy in the US.

Rebuttal witnesses testified that O’Bryan’s had a poor reputation for telling the truth. On June 2, 1975, the jury only remained out for 46 minutes and came back with a guilty verdict on count one – capital murder and four counts of attempted murder.

Next up was the penalty phase, this time the jury would take 71 minutes and in the end sentenced Ronald O’Bryan to death. Right after O’Bryan’s conviction, Daynene would file for divorce. She remarried years later and her new husband adopted Elizabeth.

Shunned on Death Row

O’Bryan was confined to the Texas State Penitentiary at Huntsville. It’s also known as the Huntsville Unit or by its nickname Walls Unit.

You know you got it bad when the other death row inmates shun you. It’s reported that it was the other prisoners who nicknamed O’Bryan The Candy Man.

O’Bryan’s first execution date was scheduled for August 8, 1980, but his attorneys were successful in getting the date postponed. Their success lasted through the next two scheduled dates for execution.

  • May 25, 1982
  • October 31, 1982 (8th anniversary of Timothy’s murder)

O’Bryan’s streak didn’t last and a fourth date was set for March 31, 1984. O’Bryan sought an additional stay of execution citing that lethal injection was “cruel and unusual.” He would be the first prisoner put to death by lethal injection in the state of Texas. On March 28th a federal judge would deny him his appeal.

Put To Death

His ex-wife believed that O’Bryan was guilty of murdering their son and felt that his death would give her a “brand new beginning.” Her focus for the eight years since O’Bryan’s conviction was to protect her daughter who has had no contact with O’Bryan since his arrest.

Daynene stated in an interview from March 1994 that she would visit her husband once a week in jail after his arrest. Each week O’Bryan would tell her he was innocent and cry while protesting his innocence. She felt that he was very convincing, but deep down knew he was responsible for their son’s death. Daynene went on to say that she thought that she may have been the original target. Right before Halloween O’Bryan had made an appointment for her to obtain some insurance. Since the couple did not have the money to pay the premiums it was canceled.

Daynene never cashed in on Timothy’s insurance policy claiming that it was “blood money.”

Right after midnight on March 31st the 39-year-old O’Bryan was put to death. His final statement was that he felt the death penalty was wrong, but that he forgave everyone involved in his death. Ronald O’Bryan claimed his innocence to the end and never admitted to murdering his own child or potentially murdering four other children.

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