![]() "It was a tremendous amount of money back then - $20,000 on each child. It was no surprise to Lanier when he discovered O'Bryan purchased a $20,000 insurance policy on both his children 30 days before Halloween. His car was about to be repossessed, he was defaulting on several bank loans, TSO wanted to fire him for theft and in five years, O'Bryan had held and lost 21 jobs. But detectives soon learned that O'Bryan had money troubles. O'Bryan worked at a TSO eye-glass store in Sharpstown, was a deacon at his church and provided a nice Deer Park home for his wife Daynene and two children. He was hiding behind religion and giving this image that he was a pillar of the community. "I didn't like the guy, even before he became a suspect," Lanier said. But sympathy for the suburban optician didn't last long. The first impression O'Bryan gave to police was that of a grieving father, "a big teddy bear," Lanier said. His little fingers couldn't open the staples," he said. "They ran up stairs and found him asleep with the Pixy Stix. Hinton remembers one child, Whitney Parker, who received the poisoned Pixy Stix, and said the boy's parents were in hysteria when they couldn't find the candy. "What stands out in my mind the most, is the cold brazenness of someone who would be able to take the lives of other little children," Hinton said. Other than Timothy's candy, the poison was detected in candy belonging to O'Bryan's daughter, their friend's son and two neighborhood children who also trick-or-treated near O'Bryan. Thousands of pieces of sweets drowned the Pasadena police department, but all five cyanide-laced Pixy Stixs were found. The community was in a panic the next day when police urged citizens to turn over all their Halloween candy for testing. Lanier, then only nine months as a detective, remembers he was working the nightshift and about to go home when dispatch told him a dead child was at the hospital. "That's why the boy threw up so violently." There was enough poison to kill a herd of elephants," Lanier said. O'Bryan testified that he gave his son Kool-Aid when the boy complained the candy tasted bitter, and then held the convulsing child until he went limp. O'Bryan's son, Timothy, soon experienced severe stomach cramps and violently vomited in the bathroom. ![]() "The boy reached in and picked out a sucker," Lanier said. Before putting his children to sleep, O'Bryan allowed his son and daughter to each choose a treat from their holiday bounty. O'Bryan took his wife and two children to a friend's Pasadena home for supper and then for a night of candy scavenging. 31, 1974 began like any other trick-or-treating night. "He just didn't want to go to prison and he didn't want to be executed."īoth men saw the case to the end and praise one another for its successful conclusion. "There's no doubt in my mind," Lanier said. "He's a sociopath and he only indulges in himself. Hinton and Lanier agree that O'Bryan was the mastermind behind that deadly Halloween and describe his deeds as evil. Also, to anyone I have offended in any way during my 39 years, I pray and ask your forgiveness," O'Bryan's last words read. "What is about to transpire in a few moments is wrong … I would forgive all who have taken part in any way in my death. Even in his last statement before his 1984 execution, O'Bryan maintained his innocence. O'Bryan never confessed to his son's murder and tampering with four other Pixy Stixs that went out to neighborhood children. Lanier admitted that he recently had a dream about O'Bryan, in which he was back in 1974 interrogating him, but knowing all that he knows now. "He's a despicable man and his whole life was a lie." Every Halloween I think about him," Bill Lanier, a former Pasadena police officer who investigated the 1974 case, said. Halloween has slowly been able to mend itself through the years as younger generations who didn't experience the city-wide fear grow older. "There's a lot of left over feelings and concerns among parents who were just children then. "He's the man that ruined Halloween for the whole world," Mike Hinton, then the prosecutor who secured a guilty verdict and sent O'Bryan to death row, said. The fun filled evening of dressing up and gorging on candy was all but gone for Pasadena and Deer Park residents in 1974, and the holiday remained that way for several years.
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