Police Issue Warning About Lemonheads Candy for Halloween

Epoch Newsroom
11/1/2016
Updated:
11/1/2016

Police in Ohio have issued warnings about Lemonheads, the sour candy, describing the sweets as “suspicious.”

“It was brought our attention by a couple people that some candy passed out in town today is very suspicious. If you and your children have Lemonheads from trick or treating today please double check them. There are multiple instances of the packages being opened slightly and the candy itself looking distorted. Please check all candy before letting anyone eat it!” the Wakeman Police Department wrote on Sunday.

Meanwhile, Gloucester Township, New Jersey, police warned parents not to eat unwrapped candy “to avoid tragedy.” It adds, “Accept and give out candy that isn’t easily unwrapped. Candies such as Tootsie Rolls, hard candies and certain bubble gums with twist-type wrappings can be tampered with more easily than those that are sealed.”

According to the Smithsonian, poisoned candy reports are “almost entirely the stuff of myth.” Joel Best of the University of Delaware has been investigating allegations of people poisoning Halloween candy. He hasn’t identified a single instance of a stranger killing a child with poison.

However, in one famous instance, a father killed his son with a poisoned Halloween treat in 1974. Ronald Clark O'Bryan was executed via lethal injection in 1984. He maintained his innocence until the end.

“The only inescapable conclusion is that this man killed his own flesh and blood for money,” Prosecutor Mike Hinton told the court, referring to a scheme to kill his son for life insurance money. “Think how easy it would be for him to kill a stranger for money.”