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The Candy Man

9 December

Mugshot of Ronald Clark O'Bryan
Old Tjikko, the world's oldest Norway spruce, and the world's third oldest clonal tree.

The topic this week is the poisoning of Timothy O'Bryan, who was murdered by his father Ronald O'Bryan (nicknamed The Candy Man by the media). Joe explains German idioms, and Sandra talks about the world's oldest tree.

Joe got his information from:

Sandra got her information from:

Audio transcript

Midweek Murders contains graphic and explicit content, listener discretion is advised.

The Germans have got some fun ones when you translate them.

Oh! Tell me all about it.

It's raining cats and dogs doesn't translate into that. I think it translates as: "It's pouring as if from a bucket".

Very literal. I like it!

that's not even a metaphor it's like

it's just

raining as if poured from a bucket

oh [ __ ] germans gotta love them

i don't know why i found that so funny

because it's just so quintessentially

german

yeah yeah it really is

i'm describing exactly what's happening

right now

it's a metaphor

i looked up the uh other german idioms i

couldn't remember

while i was freaking you

with my incredible story as soon as you

were like

i watched graham earlier i was like

alright this will go on for a while i've

got time

and you were right

so when you feel like you're going crazy

you say ichikawa is spinner

which is i believe i spider

what yep no i believe

i am a spider i believe

i spider oh this can't be true

yeah apparently it's true and the other

good one

was the phrase it's all greek to me are

you familiar with that phrase

yeah okay so the german is ich fester nu

bahnhof which translates as i only

understand train station

i was like the only thing i know

that's banhov is a train station

that makes no sense i like the raining

one

most because

i will describe the weather it's a

metaphor

it is raining i'm so poetic

ye oh you want to know something mildly

amusing

i was watching my favorite show on the

rails

the one that i told you about before and

one of the

music questions was there was a band

who did a cover on withering heights

and the question was what is the name of

this artist

that did this song couldn't

for the life of me remember kate

burschner

yeah and i was like i [ __ ] know this

question i know it i know it and i

couldn't

come up with the answer and i felt like

you and joe

would disown me if you knew me

i feel like i am not in any position to

disown anyone

over music trivia questions

is that the truth i sat the whole time

being like

it's so weird like in the 80s that's

a nicholas and i was like she did that

weird song about the babushka

you know that artist and he was like no

i have never heard this song before

i was like it's the weird one

so it could have been anyone from sweden

who do you think about when you say that

we have weird artists

zara larsen weird robin weird

abba weird i thought you would like

sarah larson i do

i was like she's right up your alley

like a pop

a lady doing generic pop song sounds

like

we do a lot of music compared to how

few people actually live in sweden well

you've got to be able to export

something other than snow

yeah that's true we also have a wood

giggity

70 or 80 or 90

of the whole geographical layout of

sweden

is just woods and also we have

the oldest recorded tree that they have

ever

found did you know that well how do they

know if it's still alive

what do you mean the only way to age a

tree is to chop it down

i don't know they can probably like take

samples from it

you're the [ __ ] princess yep i'm

telling you the only way to age a tree

is to cut it down nah i don't believe

that they can do like carbon

blah blah blah blah do carbon dating on

a tree

are you sure they know that it's the

oldest one

and i saw a photo i was like oh that's

so cool

finally famous for something and then i

looked it up

and it's so sad the face of the tree

just looks so abysmal barely has

any green just a little thin stump of

like

and this is why you didn't get into

descriptive literature

hey i'm the published author here

i was like oh cool so cool like you know

the redwood forest in america

so majestic so incredible and then

it's so sweet

wow it looks like a disgruntled old

bonsai

it should have died 10 000 years ago man

it's probably just like i'm the oldest

tree i have no friends anymore i can't

keep up with the younger generation

and this is the [ __ ] world i've

inherited

what's the point i'm not growing leaves

anymore i'll just [ __ ] die

just cut me down and look at my rings

yeah spot some scientists coming and

he's like oh

finally they'll cut me down to see how

old i am

and then they're just like [ __ ]

carbon dating

what is this not

[ __ ] tree beard over here just cut me

down

enough is enough i've lived through the

roman empire

and you give me [ __ ] trump

do you know what i've seen

it was a sapling when genghis was

conquering mongolia

that's going to make it as one of the

quotes isn't it and it's going to have

nothing to do with the case

i should put a photo of the tree on the

website

just to bum everyone

look at this [ __ ] ugly depressed tree

come on swedish foresters just cut it

down

i bet zlatan could cut it down just by

looking at it oh yeah

this still gaze of his steel case

would just the still gaze of his still

gaze

what's the author here

his steely gaze was just there

and as he gazed with his steel gaze

all those before him could not bear to

sustain

the gaze of the steely gaze

oh god are you ready to start chapter

two

slather woke up one morning

to the prayers of the entire world

as latin thou art in heaven

hallowed be thy name

and he felt a tingle in his steely gaze

i'm a spider he said

all these prayers are making me go

insane

spinner said zlatan

looking at them looking out

the window while it rained as if poured

from a bucket

he listened to the prayers and said i

only understand the train station

it's wednesday my dudes

which means that it's time to talk about

crime

i'm your host sandra and i'm your host

zlatan with the steely gays

that's joe by the way this week we're

to talk about the candyman and the

murder of

timothy o'brien i got my information

from

wikipedia a website called mamma mia

here we go again and an article

therein by belinda jepsen and a medium

article

by lisa marie fuqua

an article in the dispatch from 1975

and a book called a capital case in

america

how today's justice system handles death

penalty cases from

crime scene to ultimate execution of

sentence

by david crump and george jacobs

i also read a court of criminal

appeals decision o'brien versus state

i'm done

said slaughter someone's been busy

yeah i got my sources from

the houston chronicle the gorgeous

history geeks

that's the thing where can i join

historical crime detective and

a case study on a website

that is a dot edu so i'm assuming

it's totes legit okay on halloween 1974

ronald clark o'brien went out

trick-or-treating in pasadena texas

with his two children timothy 8 years

old

and elizabeth five years old with them

was two other children and those

children's father

jim [ __ ] whilst walking around the

bates family's neighborhood

as this was a more affluent area

they had rung the doorbell at a house

where the lights were off

and unsurprisingly no one answered

the children then ran ahead to try their

luck at the next house

ronald was left behind for a couple of

minutes and

in the book it said 30 seconds but i

don't know

but soon caught up to the group at which

point he gave the kids

five pixie sticks with a lot of excess

fixing

sticks that's for you youtube

transcription

service

translate that [ __ ] which he claimed to

have acquired at the previous house

where someone had answered the door

after the group

had left but only with their arm

which was described as harry

tune in next week to see if gorillas can

be home owners

i think a lot of people have hairy arms

enough that

so that when it's dark and the doors

only open a sliver

enough to tell that they're half

orangutan i don't think people have arms

that are that hairy

i don't want to out nicholas here but he

has hairy knuckles

i'm just saying well then he's probably

very closely related

to the missing link

wow we should cut him open and count his

rings

corbin beat him yeah

he told jim bates you've got rich

neighbors

look at what they're handing out and i

was like

five pixie sticks [ __ ] sherbet

i was like really

no you're right ronald usually we just

get a grape

i was like at least give out some like

full-sized snicker bars that's a rich

neighborhood oh

what a hole that would be yeah five

pixie sticks i would be

disappointed so the rain that night

was

was pouring out of a bucket

so it cut the trick-or-treating short

and before the group

said their goodbyes ronald gave one

pixie stix

to each of the children and then because

there was four children he then gave the

last one to a random boy

who went to the same church as the

o'brien family

where ronald was a deacon and sang in

the choir

before going to bed that evening the

o'brien children were given

permission to eat one piece of candy

each

timothy either chose or was given

his pixie sticks he reportedly had some

trouble getting the candy out of the

package

and asked his father for help timothy

then ate some

but complained about the taste of it as

the sweet and sour

powdered candy tasted quote

bitter unquote

what are you laughing about it just said

better

bitter it tasted bitter

chewy get me some kool-aid

are you spoiling the whole case

i'm in this podcast too

how are you though

i'm kidding i'm kidding so ronald gave

timothy some kool-aid to wash the

bitterness down

after which timothy complained about

stomach pains

and then ran to the bathroom where he

proceeded to vomit

and convulse timothy died in an

ambulance on the way to the hospital

less than an hour

after tasting the candy timothy's

death sparked a panic in the

neighborhood they lived in

deer park and the surrounding areas

parents all around pasadena collected

the candy

their children had been given on

halloween and

handed it over to the police as fears

about there being some person out there

handing out

poisoned candy grew timothy's

autopsy results showed that the pixie

stix

he had consumed contained a little dose

of potassium cyanide which prompted

police to immediately

search for the four remaining pieces of

pixie sticks

that have been given out that night the

parents

of whitney the boy who ronald had given

the fifth

piece to panicked after receiving the

phone call from police

about the candy as they could not find

it in the house

in the house house in the house

i'm so german when i say house

i think i spied her i think i spied up

they then ran up to the boy's bedroom

and found it clutched in the sleeping

boy's hand fortunately he had been

unable to open the package as it was

stapled

shut after examining the four unconsumed

pixie sticks

the police found that they had all been

topped up

with little amounts of cyanide and

stapled

shots this might be a stupid question

but here it comes hold your judgment

man is there difference between

potassium cyanide and cyanide

and potassium yes what is potassium

cyanide

so potassium cyanide is just a salt of

potassium and cyanide so

like table salt is sodium chloride

is made up of sodium and chlorine

potassium cyanide is a salt that's made

up

of potassium and cyanide so it's just

a way that those two chemicals can

coexist

okay do you have some things about the

autopsy or

potassium cyanide i couldn't find

anything about the autopsy

did you find stuff about the autopsy i

didn't even look into it mate because i

was like yeah he's gonna cover not my

job

well i guess we can say that he died

very quickly and the thing i could find

was that

the pixie stix he consumed was

filled with enough potassium cyanide

to be lethal for two adults

yeah so supposedly the cause of death

was

pretty obviously cyanide poisoning i

can't confirm that because

like i said i didn't access the autopsy

reports but that's where it's all

documented

the media reports of timothy's

symptoms match cyanide poisoning

so headaches dizziness tachycardia

shortness of breath vomiting

and the onset of symptoms with cyanide

poisoning

is very very rapid it's a couple of

minutes

so that fits in as well it's not like

there was a completely different time

frame of when it was reported that he

died and

the efficacy of cyanide poisoning the

way that cyanide

poisoning works is a lovely

easy thing to pronounce histo toxic

hypoxia

mr toxic hypoxia bam histo toxic

hysterotoxins toxic see told you what's

not easy

i had it the first time

which is basically the inability of the

cells to take

up oxygen so the cyanide

binds onto part of a protein

in cells which is where the oxygen

should bind instead so it basically

blocks that channel for the oxygen to be

absorbed

so a lot of first line treatments for

unknown headache dizziness etc

is to administer oxygen and that's going

to be completely pointless

with cyanide poisoning because it's not

a problem of

not having enough oxygen in the blood

it's just the cells can't absorb it

from the blood so the only treatment for

cyanide poisoning

is to introduce a substance

that is more attractive to the cyanide

bonding

than the protein receptor is but

obviously they need to know that it's

cyanide poisoning to be able to

know which drug to administer what drug

would that be

it's a thiosulfite so in terms of the

dosage

the ld50 is disputed

in different sources but one that i

found was

one to three milligrams per kilogram

now we can't use our lovely 70

kilos as an example because the kid was

only eight

so it looks up the average weight of an

eight-year-old boy

which is gonna have a drastic effect on

my

internet advertising so you're welcome

oh god so an approximate weight for

a healthy eight-year-old boy is about

25-26 kilos which means

that according to the reports of it

being enough to kill

two adults there must have been about

140 milligrams

of potassium cyanide in the pixie sticks

i think i read something about there

being

between two and three and that might

have been grams

that seems like an extortionately high

amount

okay maybe not 0.2 and not 0.3 i don't

remember

which would be 200 to 300 milligrams

which

could be right but even if we take the 2

to 3

grams imagine a 20 pence piece

that weighs 5 grams the point of that

comparison is

just to show how little potassium

cyanide you'd need to

kill multiple people

and one of the people that he spoke to a

chemical salesperson

who actually gave evidence to the police

against

ronald he was visited by ronald who

wanted to buy

some cyanide and he only had it in

quantities of five pounds

which is 2.268

kilograms yeah so that's

thousands of magnitude more

than he put in the pixie stix which was

enough

to kill two or three fully grown adult

men

so this guy really made sure that these

kids

were gonna die if they ate this naughty

sherbet

yeah oh also interestingly one thing

that i saw

one of the paramedics was going

to administer mouth-to-mouth in

the ambulance to try and resuscitate

timothy

he didn't and i don't know the reason

behind not doing it maybe because

he was already dead but there was enough

cyanide

still in timothy's mouth to have killed

the paramedic

from administering mouth to mouth that's

crazy

another question potassium does that

have

different effects than cyanide yes

potassium as a raw element is incredibly

volatile

if you put it in water

it will explode oh god i didn't know

that

so if you put enough bananas no

as soon as you take it out of its

raw elemental form and mix it with

something else

in this case cyanide it completely

changes the chemical properties

and again to use the example of salt

normal table salt sodium chloride

elemental sodium

is in the same group as potassium so

if you put elemental sodium in water

it will explode oh god chlorine

is obviously toxic to people that's why

mustard gas is a thing that's why if you

accidentally make chlorine gas

you have to have a whole bunch of health

and safety people

assess whether it's safe to return to

work it will

burn you from the inside out

chlorine is a horrible horrible

gas how can that accidentally happen

if you mix cleaning products

for example but basically adding two

things that shouldn't be added can cause

a chemical reaction that will give off

chlorine gas

oh so those two elements

by themselves are horrifically

dangerous mix them together and you get

one of the most common condiments in the

world

salt especially if you're a swede salty

goodness

everywhere they put it in their [ __ ]

sweets the weirdos

so yes potassium and cyanide when

administered separately

will have completely different well

cyanide not so much

but yeah they will react differently if

they're in their raw

elemental form okay is convulsions

also a symptom of cyanide poisoning it's

a progressive symptom

so it's one of the secondary sets of

symptoms

is seizures so it goes from headache

dizziness

tachycardia which is a fast heart rate

shortness of breath and vomiting

and then it progresses to seizures

bradycardia or bradycardia which is a

slow heart rate

a decreased blood pressure

unconsciousness and then

cardiac arrest the onset of symptoms is

really quick

and he died in the ambulance on the way

to the hospital

but fortunately for him probably

unconsciousness

is another symptom so he probably would

have

passed out before i was gonna say before

it got too

bad but he wouldn't have been

conscious for the whole thing yeah

that's good i also

read that pixie stix are heat sealed

so the fact that all of the pixie sticks

that ronald had given out were stapled

shot

is definitely not a thing that they do

at the factory

i think it is no they said that it

wasn't

i don't know if it's the same brand but

definitely in my childhood there was

a stick of sherbet that came in a tube

that was both heat sealed and stapled

shirt

it might be another brand then probably

quite possibly

i've never heard of pixie stix i don't

think we have it in sweden

from reading through everything my

suspicions weren't raised

when it said that they were stapled sure

yeah but i read that

the factory confirmed that they all were

heat sealed

in both ends so

when the police interviewed ronald he

first claimed that he

couldn't remember at what house he was

given the sticks

even though the group had only stopped

at two

houses as the reign had cut the

trick-or-treating short

after the police had requested that

ronald show them the house

and after them walking around the area

three

times this might have been separate

times or not separate times i don't know

ronald suddenly remembered any aircrafts

where he had gotten the candy and led

the police to the house where nobody had

answered to the house to the house

where nobody had answered the doorbell

until the children had run ahead

he then told police that the occupant of

the house had only cracked open the door

and handed the candy over

without showing as fast as we said the

only thing ronald had

seen in our quotes of the occupant

ronald

cleaned was a hairy arm there he comes

i should have just skipped that but now

it's in there

yeah that's uh the title of my sex tape

just skipped it but now it's now it's in

there

the house was owned by a mr courtney

melvin

who had around 200 witnesses

that could attest that he had been at

work at the time

of when the trick-or-treating had taken

place

during the investigation the police

realized that ronald was 100

000 in debt which is about

520 000 in today's money

which is crazy amounts of debt

am i the only one who thinks that this

is ridiculous

in the 1970s how in the

[ __ ] did they get that much debt did

they

buy a plane well i think one of the

sources that i read

said that i think it was in the

preceding

four years ronald had

had and been fired or quit 21

jobs i saw that as well but also if he

was

working even if it was 20 well he

obviously wasn't

yeah but if he was working 21 times

which

must have been some money how in the

hell

did they acquire that much debt because

they're american

yeah maybe so the police had also

received a phone call from an insurance

agent who informed them that ronald had

taken out

twenty thousand dollar life insurances

on his two children a couple of weeks

before

halloween and the o'brien's already had

ten thousand dollar life insurances on

the children

and he had called the insurance company

to try to collect on these

the morning after timothy had died

which is a big red flag ronald

had also told his co-workers that he was

quitting his job

as he was about to get rich even though

the o'briens had had to move out

of their house and their car was about

to be

repossessed so another big red flag

ding the police also searched the

o'brien's house

where they found a pair of scissors and

a knife the blades of the scissors

as well as the knife had a plastic

substance on them

the knife also had clear crystal

particles that were water

soluble and contained sugar

they theorized that these crystal

particles might be the same

as the candy in a pixie stix but a

comparison

test failed to match the substances

positively so one of his colleagues

remembered

ronald asking if anyone if just anyone

could purchase potassium cyanide and a

professor at the community college

where ronald were taking classes had

gotten questions from him about how much

poison

it would take to kill different sized

animals

one of them coincidentally matched the

same size

as an eight-year-old child did it

yeah ronald o'brien was arrested

and his trial started on may the 5th

1975 at the trial the defense tried to

blame it on the urban

myth about people handing out poison

candy or candied apples with

razors in them even though this has

never happened but apparently it was a

myth

before this case happened which is crazy

because this

is the first recorded instance of this

ever happening and also it wasn't a

stranger giving out the candies

it was his own dad and also the other

cases of

this even being remotely true is very

similar

circumstances so it's like a family

member or like

stuff like that it's never actually

happened so

all of you listeners out there you don't

need to be scared

although never accept sweets from a

stranger

that's strange danger 101 oh yeah that's

true

i don't think anyone's ever rang our

doorbell for

halloween here in london i thought it

would happen the first year

so i bought some candy and the second

year i bought some candy just in case

never happened more for you yeah

so even though the prosecutors couldn't

prove

where ronald had bought the cyanide it

took the jury a mere

46 minutes to convict him and he was

sentenced to

death for murder and four counts of

attempted murder

for the other pixie stix packaging

things that he gave out

because they could prove that there was

cyanide in all of them

potassium cyanide sorry one prosecutor

told the jury that ronald had sacrificed

his son

on the altar of greed so

biblical yeah ronald's wife

they did question mark divorced him

shortly

after he was convicted she claimed to

have been

unaware of the life insurance policies

ronald taken out

although she did know about the ten

thousand dollar ones

just not the recent twenty thousand

dollar ones

and called her husband a chronic liar

de nin had previously tried to find a

psychiatrist for him

as he had exhibited some strange

behavior

and with that i read something about him

being like

having a bayonet or some kind of

weird [ __ ] that he was like pulling out

and putting into the seat sheave

half and half she's

a couple of times and she was like yes

weird and also she at one point thought

that he would use it on her or on

himself

but because she had wanted a good

christian

psychiatrist and was unable to find one

she decided to give up on that and just

seek the help of the lord

prayer is not a psychiatrist please

treat your mental health with a

professional

de nin also informed the officers about

two previous suspected insurance fraud

instances where ronald had taken out

insurance policies

on their furniture and belongings and

then somehow

their belongings had caught fire mash

them up with a bayonet

ronald o'brien was despised imprisoned

by his fellow inmates for killing a

child

and he was dubbed the candyman by media

and was executed by lethal injection in

1984 during which a crowd of

300 people had gathered and

shouted trick-or-treat which

i felt like was the craziest part of

this whole case

it's america in it yeah and also people

used to go

to public hanging so i'm guessing it's

not that weird

no but they tend to make lethal

injections

not public also on the subject of

lethal injections for you historical

nerds that are listening

and you sandra because you're a

historical nerd

he was sentenced to death by the

electric chair

yeah and by the time it got

to his date of execution because it was

postponed

three times it was actually eight years

after he'd been sentenced that he was

executed

and by that time they had stopped

execution

by electric chair and he was the first

texan to be executed by lethal injection

was i he know he was the first

but also thank god they stopped the

electric chair things one of

his appeals to have it postponed

and to go to retrial was on the basis

that

the lethal injection was inhumane

well it is isn't it no but

even if you were to consider it inhumane

compare it to the electric

chair yeah yeah i just think that it's

because

i don't agree with executing people

i think that even though the evidence

were

circumstantial in this case i don't

think that there's any question about

him being guilty though

no which is why he was sentenced so

quickly by the jury

yeah i think so too but it really sounds

like he was a major idiot

about the whole thing it's like he

didn't even

try to hide it it's so crazy

he also told like his brother-in-law and

sister-in-law

that he was planning on taking a

vacation

on the funeral he was like yeah with all

this new money

i got into i'm gonna treat myself to a

vacation

i'm like what the [ __ ] he was so

stupid what are you gonna do now

sleep probably i've been up since half

six oh yeah

good lord i played some computer games

sad violin music oh okay yep

before we started recording and

i just shot everyone well i shot some of

them with sleep darts so i'm like

that doesn't count they're still alive

and that's why deep down i'm a good

person

and then one of them that i shot with

the sleep lord got eaten by

rats and i'm like that's not my problem

i didn't

get that you

are basically the story of the greek

gods

you've been sentenced to death but i

can't do it myself

i know i'll just leave you out in the

wilderness for the wild animals to get

you

and therefore i didn't actually kill you

but you still

died with loads of illegitimate children

as well

yeah just left out in the forest

to get adopted by bears that's me

i hope they're all right i'm just

kidding you're illegitimate children

okay thank you so much for listening

to midweek murders we'll see you next

week

goodbye

oh i thought you were on the toilet i

was like worst timing ever

worst outro ever goodbye

bye-bye

watering watering watering water

heat clip it's me a cathy

of camo mines you're gone

Topics
  • murder of Timothy O'Bryan
  • Ronald Clark O'Bryan
  • true crime
  • potassium cyanide
  • poisoned Halloween candy
  • forensic science podcast
  • Murder for life insurance money
  • People executed by Texas by lethal injection
  • poisoners
  • murders on Halloween
  • The Candy Man
  • Man who killed Halloween
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