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Hi, my name is Bailey Sarriot and every Monday I sit down and I talk about a true crime story that's been heavy on my noggin. If you're interested in true crime and you like makeup, I would highly suggest you hit that subscribe button. I'm here for you every Monday. Let's get into it. I thought today we could talk about the Candyman.
Today's story takes place in Deer Park, Texas. A man by the name of Ronald O'Brien lived with his wife, Diane, and their two children, a son named Timothy and their daughter named Elizabeth.
Ronald worked as an optician at Texas State Optical in Sharpstown, Houston. Ronald also was a deacon at the Second Baptist Church where he also sang in the choir and he was in charge of the local bus program. He seemed like a great man in the community, but you know what they say, the great ones are the most suspish. So then Halloween night comes around, October 31st, 1974.
Ronald decided to take his two children trick-or-treating in Pasadena, Texas to this different neighborhood. I mean, it wasn't too far from where he lived. You know how you go to the more expensive neighborhoods because they usually give out the good candy, the full Snickers bars, not the minis. That's what they were doing.
So Ronald and his two children, right? They go trick-or-treating. They also take their neighbor and his two children. Little hangout time with the neighbor. So the kids are all excited and they run up to their next home. So they go running up to the door and they knock. Trick-or-treat, oh my God. But the house looked empty. There was no one inside.
The lights were all off, it was kind of dark in this home, so the kids are just waiting though. Because you know, sometimes just because the lights are off doesn't mean that nobody's home. So they're just waiting. Wind blowing, little bit of drizzles coming down because it's raining a little bit. They realize that nobody's home, so of course the kids get all antsy and they run off. They head to their next home. Now Ronald decides to stay behind. So then a few minutes later, Ronald caught up with the group and showed off five.
21 inch pixie stick, which he said someone at the house actually answered. Ronald's like, you guys should have waited a little longer because this guy's giving out 21 inch pixie sticks. He's making it rain pixie sticks.
So of course the kids are all excited because I mean, hey, those are some big ass pixie sticks, cool, sugar. At the end of the night, Ronald gave his neighbor's children, there was two of them, he gave them each a pixie stick and then he gave one to his son, Timothy and one to Elizabeth, his daughter. So once they were home, someone came to the door
and they were knocking, it's still Halloween night. It was some kids, they were trick or treating. And it was a 10 year old boy who went to the church Ronald worked at. So once he recognized this little boy, he was like, "Oh, I have some candy to give you, some pixie sticks."
I got these from the neighbor, but they're leftover. I can give them to these kids. So he gives the kid, I think it's only one kid. I apologize. He gives the kid a pixie stick and then sends him on his way. So once they got all settled in and at home, you know, the kids naturally, they want to eat their candy right away. And they asked their dad, Ronald, can we eat the candy? Please, please.
And Ronald being the great parent that he is, was like, "Sure, you can have a piece of candy, but only one. And then tomorrow you can go ham and eat three pieces, you know? But tonight you can only eat one piece of candy." So Ronald actually picked out the pixie stick for Timothy to eat.
I don't know what his daughter picked, 'cause she didn't have a Pixie Stick. It was just Timothy. So he's like, "Here, eat this Pixie Stick." Which by the way, I don't know why you would pick a Pixie Stick for your child because it's just straight sugar and your kid's gonna be wired and up all night. That's a terrible idea. So little old Timothy, he's excited.
He rips open that pixie stick. He tries to pour it into his mouth, but you know how pixie sticks are. They kind of stick. They get stuck all the powder. Timothy is trying to pour it into his mouth, but it's stuck. So Ronald comes over and helps out Timothy. He's kind of like wiggling the packaging so he could get it into his mouth. So finally they wiggle that candy right out into Timothy's mouth.
And then Timothy, right away, he complained that candy tasted really gross, bitter, and kind of just nasty. He was like, "Eh." But he still ate it because kids will be kids and they like candy. So Ronald was like, "Here, have some of my Kool-Aid to wash that bitter taste out of your mouth." So this kid is just having a lot of sugar. Now, a couple minutes later, poor old Timothy starts complaining that he has a tummy ache. So his stomach's hurting, he's feeling really sick.
He's like, "Daddy, I don't feel so hot." And then not long after, Timothy runs to the bathroom and he just starts throwing up all over the place. Then Timothy falls to the ground and he starts convulsing on the ground. The hell's going on? So Ronald comes running in because he hears that Timothy is just throwing up. He hears like a loud noise because Timothy just like fell on the ground. So Ronald comes there to try and comfort him.
Ronald said that Timothy just went limp in his arms. It's unclear who called 911, but 911 was called. Paramedics arrive and they're gonna take Timothy to the hospital. But sadly, poor little Timothy died before he reached the hospital. So of course, because like it's a small town, news got out that poor little Timothy had died from what they believed was poisoned Halloween candy. And naturally all the parents picked up
Panicked any of us would parents took all of their kids Halloween candy, but all the kids were pissed I mean it's Halloween and I don't even get to eat my candy Why did Timothy have to die and ruin it for all of us is what they're thinking. I mean their children They're very full of themselves
and police were accepting all of the candy because they wanted to see how much candy out there was poisoned. And hopefully kind of put the pieces together and figure out, was it just pixie sticks? Was it in all of the candy? Please give us all of your candy. So the parents just took everything and dropped it off at the police station.
Now luckily all of the candy was taken and brought to the police officers and they were able to prevent anybody else from dying because all the candy was taken quickly. And plus with kids, I mean when you get a bag of candy, a pixie stick isn't going to be your first choice. You know, I mean thank God. The police officers did notice that whoever was responsible for this was very just kind of sloppy.
They opened up the pixie stick, they put whatever it was inside of it, and then they stapled it closed. So they were looking for any candy that had like a staple on it, and it was only the pixie sticks. They found six of them that had this staple on them. So naturally police go to Ronald and they're like, okay, show us the house. Take us to the neighborhood, take us...
to the house that gave you this goddamn pixie stick. But Ronald was stumped. He just couldn't seem to find the house and point it out to police officers. He couldn't exactly remember where it was.
And he also said that he never saw the face of the person responsible. He said that a hand just emerged from the doorway, handed him the candy and he didn't see who it was. Ronald went on to say that the homeowner did not turn on the lights, but cracked the door and handed them the five pixie sticks. And he claimed that he only saw a man's arm, which he described as hairy.
Really giving police the dirty details, you know? Wow. But he was confident that it was a man. So police are kind of like, okay, sure Ron. They're growing a little suspish. You don't know where the house is at?
Come on. So a few days go by and it was just becoming very frustrating for investigators because they weren't getting any answers and they knew Ronald had the answers. I mean, he just needs to remember which house was it so they could make an arrest. I mean, hello, who killed your son? Wouldn't you remember the house?
So then police officers meet up with Ronald again and they're like, "Okay, Ronald, you need to show us where this house is at." And they were being pretty firm with him. "If you don't show us where this house is at, we think something is kind of fishy around here." So this kind of freaks Ronald out. He's like, "Oh, okay, so I just need to figure this out 'cause I don't want them to think it's me." And taking Ronald out again seemed to actually work because Ronald all of a sudden was like, "Oh my God, wait, I think I remember. Let me take you there."
So Ronald and the investigators go to the home, which gave them the candy. He pointed towards the house and was like, "It's that one. I remember it was that one." So investigators go up to the home, they're knocking, and the man who lived there wasn't home. So they go and they look up, okay, who owns the home?
try and find all the information that they can get so they can make an arrest for this guy who killed the kid. So they find this man who owns the home. He works at an airport. Police go to where his work is at and they arrest the man in front of his colleagues, in front of everyone. The mystery was over. Case closed, ta-da. Thank you for coming to my show. Psych.
So they bring the man in for questioning, right? And he had a pretty strong alibi. I mean, it was a solid alibi. He said that he was working that night. The only people that were home was his wife and his daughter. And they had turned out the lights early because they ran out of candy and they didn't wanna make kids believe that they had candy, leave us alone, turned out the lights. Police fact check this, they see timesheets, they see everything. It wasn't this guy. And he didn't have hairy arms.
Police weren't believing it was the wife and daughter, and they had no reason to believe it was the wife and daughter because Ronald stood by the fact that it was a man. So police did run an autopsy report on poor little Timothy. It revealed that Timothy had consumed enough cyanide to kill two people. So police are thinking, well, shit, this is real fishy. So word got back to investigators that Ronald was angry at his relatives,
He was angry at his relatives because they didn't stay up the night of Timothy's funeral, which was odd. You see, Ronald had written a song about Jesus and Timothy joining the Lord in heaven. And Ronald, he had grown agitated when his grieving family didn't stay up late to watch a recording of the performance being broadcasted on television. This made investigators kind of like,
Why is he acting all mad? He didn't seem sad. He just wasn't reacting like you should when you're supposed to be grieving over the loss of your son. A little bit of time goes on and Ronald was not giving any clues or answers to investigators. So they're like, you know what? We're gonna just dig around ourselves and see like, what's Ronald's deal? Who is this Ronald guy?
Let's find out. So they do some research and they find some very interesting information. So they find out that little Ronald over here, over the last 10 years, this dude, he held over 21 jobs.
21 jobs in 10 years. Do you understand that? So, okay, it seems like he has a really hard time holding a job. They also found that Ronald was $100,000 in debt. Also, he was a suspect of theft at his job at the Texas State Optical Place. His car was about to be repossessed. He had also defaulted on several bank loans and had the family home foreclosed on.
So police were looking at this thinking, "Well, it looks like Ronald was in some real shit." Then they look a little bit deeper and guess what they find? They realize that Ronald
his dumb ass, Ronald, had recently taken out life insurance policies on both of his children. Now it was only $10,000 per child in January of that year, but then in September, he upped it to $20,000 per child, just one month before Halloween.
So what are you gonna do, Ronald? Kill your children and get $40,000? Get this, because this is like the cherry on top of the cake ice cream. This guy is...
So stupid. I kid you not, Ronald called his insurers to ask about the payout at 9:00 AM the morning, like the morning following Timothy's death. He didn't even wait that long. Like he, his son just died. And then he's like, hey,
Yeah, so how am I gonna get that money? Ronald, what are you doing? So investigators are like, okay, we actually have a pretty good case against this Ronald guy, right? Like all signs are pointing to him. So police then get a warrant and they search Ronald's home where they find a pair of scissors. Oh my God, scissors. On these scissors, there was plastic residue attached, which was similar to the one that was found on the cyanide laced sweets.
So of course, Ronald was arrested and taken in for questioning. At this time, Ronald was attending community college. I'm not sure what he was like getting a degree in or anything like that, but he was attending community college. And one of Ronald's professors came forward and said, yeah, Ronald would ask the weirdest questions in class, like quote, what is more lethal, cyanide or another type of poison? Ronald, Ronald.
Dear sir, what in the butt are you doing? It's like he wasn't even trying to hide the fact that he was doing something. Another witness came forward and this person worked at a chemical company and they told police that a man had come in to buy some cyanide. The man from the store said he couldn't identify Ronald, but he remembered that this customer was wearing a blue smock like a doctor.
Ronald, again, was an optician and that was the exact uniform he wore to work. This was years before DNA testing and the contactless debit cards. So police couldn't exactly pin the pixie sticks on Ronald's hands or prove that he bought any cyanide.
but these seem like pretty strong leads, right? Ronald's maintained his innocence. He was like, "Nope, wasn't me. It was a person at that house." And technically there was no proof. So the press ended up dubbing Ronald, the Candyman.
On June 3rd, 1975, the jury took 46 minutes to find Ronald O'Brien guilty of capital murder and four counts of attempted murder. The jury took 71 minutes to sentence him to death. Sorry, Ronald, but like you try to kill your kid for $20,000. I mean, come on.
Get it together. Shortly after he was convicted, his wife filed for divorce. There really wasn't much said about her. I think she was pissed off as she should be. Ronald O'Brien was confined to the Huntsville unit in Huntsville, Texas. Now it said that Ronald was shunned and despised by his fellow death row inmates for killing a child. The inmates
reportedly petitioned to hold an organized demonstration on Ronald's execution date to express their hatred of him. Then finally on March 31st, 1984, shortly after midnight, Ronald was executed by lethal injection at the Huntsville unit. In his final statement, Ronald maintained his innocence, stating that he felt the death penalty was wrong
And then he died. During the execution, a crowd of 300 demonstrators gathered outside the prison and they cheered while some yelled, "Trick or treat!"
Yeah, they yelled that while Ronald was being executed. To the day Ronald was executed, he maintained his innocence. He said, "I did not do this, God damn it." But what do you believe? Do you think Ronald was responsible? Anyways, let me know your thoughts of Ronald down below. Do you believe he should have got the death penalty? Well, a lot of people say that it was
a little much, like he shouldn't have gotten the death penalty. Luckily though, his daughter did not eat the candy and the other kids who got the pixie sticks did not eat the candy as well. So Timothy sadly was the only one who passed away from this awful, awful, disgusting crime.
How do you kill your own kid for $20,000? Like, I mean, no, you don't do that. But other than that, I hope you have a wonderful day today. You make good choices and make sure to check your candy because daddy might try to kill you. Alrighty, until next time.