It’s almost Halloween again, and the kids are gearing up to put on their favorite ghost and witch outfits and roam the streets in search of candy. It’s around this time of year that parents need to start thinking about the safety of their kids, too. Every year, we hear horror stories about the bizarre things that have been found in Halloween candy – and while it’s important to maintain trust in our local communities, it’s also essential to take a look at everything your kids pick up on their Trick or Treat travels.
Until then, we can indulge in some of the crazy stories that have occurred over the years. Some are seriously well known, while others appear to be stories popping up across social media and YouTube. Let’s take a look at the 20 most deadly things that have been found in Halloween candy!
1. Razor Blades
Razor blades seem to be a recurring theme when it comes to weird things found in Halloween candy. There was a story out of Minneola, Florida, of a 15-year-old boy claiming he had found a razor blade in his candy. It’s said that the kid actually found the candy on the ground and assumed another child had dropped it. So, he went ahead and picked up the candy and took it home.
When his responsible mom started separating all the candy, she saw a Three Musketeers candy bar that seemed to have something wedged inside. What she found was apparently a razor blade that had been inserted and hidden under the chocolate.
2. Glass
Another story says that in Buffalo, New York, a woman found a shard of glass that had been delicately placed inside of a Tootsie Roll, which certainly isn’t the easiest thing to do. The woman was celebrating Halloween with her family, but luckily managed to see the glass inside the candy before she ate it. A lucky escape!
3. Meth
There were rumors sweeping the country in 2007 that meth was being found in many different candies. An email from Special Agent Todd Coleman warned that the methamphetamine drug was being inserted into candies to transport across America, but since then, there have been multiple claims that this was a myth. It’s frightening nonetheless.
4. Poison
This is probably the spookiest, and also one of the nastiest. There was a report in 1964 that a woman had handed out candies, including Pixie Stix and other sweets, that were laced with cyanide. It’s said the lady was handing out the poisoned sweets to kids she thought were too old to go out Trick or Treating. This sounds like an urban legend to us, but you never know.
5. Marijuana
Back in 2000, a postal worker had been handing out Snickers bars to children, only for the children to find that they were stuffed full of pot. It turned out that the man had brought home the Snickers from a lost package at the postal facility, without realizing the chocolate was actually an attempt by somebody to smuggle drugs. Check your candy, folks!
6. Needles
Another story surrounding Snickers bars happened in the year 2000, when a man named James Joseph Smith in Minneapolis had stuck needles in the chocolate bars that he handed out to children. The only victim, however, was one teenager who was pricked by the needle but was unharmed.
7. Drugs
A child user of YouTube, under the username Badderlisus Gamergurl, posted a video in 2015 about candy she’d gotten during her Trick or Treating. She shows that she found some small chocolates that had holes in them, with bizarre liquid inside. It turns out they were drugs that had been planted inside!
8. Lighters
Lighters are really dangerous around kids – they can easily be sparked, and some kids may even try and set fires. There have been numerous cases all over the country of lighters being put inside of bags of candy, so be sure to keep an eye out for that!
9. More Razor Blades
Back in 2014, the Daily Buzz Live YouTube channel posted a video of a man talking about how his kids had gone out Trick or Treating, only to come back with a chocolate bar which, when broken in half, appeared to have a razor blade inserted inside. Those that do this seem to take particular effort to hide these things, so it’s important to be really vigilant
10. Staples and Needles
In 2012, a video from the RTV6 channel saw two newsreaders talking about a case of Trick or Treat candy in Mooresville being tampered with. The report explained how needles and staples had been found in candy in the region in two separate incidents.
11. Bullets
A report from JFOR said that a woman in Ohio actually found bullets inside four different boxes of Milk Duds. Each box contained three bullets designed for a .22 hand gun. Weirdly, the boxes came from a preschool, but the motive is unknown. Could it be a mistake or is this a seriously creepy way to scare kids?
12. A Big Scare
In 2001, the news in British Columbia was going crazy over a four-year-old girl dying after eating her Halloween candy. It was found later, however – after a long search for the person responsible – that she had in fact died of a streptococcus infection.
13. A Wedding Ring
OK, so this isn’t really all that dangerous – but maybe it could have choked a kid! A news report from ABC explained that a woman had accidentally dropped her wedding ring inside of a kid’s bag. The ring had come off when she was helping her daughter carve pumpkins, and the ring went missing in one of the bags, never to be seen again.
14. Pills
In 2015, residents in Bismarck, ND, complained to the local police that children had been finding pills in their candy. The pills had been scattered throughout bags and inserted into chocolate. Let’s hope nobody was hurt!
15. A Mystery
There was talk back in 1978 that Halloween candy had killed a child called Patrick Wiederhold. The child, who was from Flint, Michigan, had died after eating his candy, but tests found afterwards that there was no evidence of poisoning and the death seemed to be natural…though unidentified.
16. Even More Needles
Needles seem to be a popular theme when it comes to tainted candy. In 2015, a mother reported that she had found needles in her child’s candy bars, which she found sticking through the wrappers. The tainted Crunch candy bars were picked up in Springfield, Massachusetts, and were only discovered after the family had sat down to eat their dinner.
17. A Scary Advice Column
Way back in 1983, an advice column known as ‘Dear Abby’ published a column called ‘A Night of Treats, Not Tricks’. This column is widely considered to be the source of the fear that candy can get tainted. In it, the article warned that some children will become violently ill or die after eating poisoned candy, or apples containing razor blades. Though it wasn’t a case in itself, it definitely gave people ideas.
18. Not-So-Festive Lights
Parents from Northwest Arkansas reported in 2015 that individual Christmas lights had been found in their child’s candy. These small bulbs can be seriously dangerous if a child swallows them, and their colors mean that they can look just like a piece of candy. This is really nasty stuff.
19. What’s With All the Needles?
Police from Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, had to warn residents in 2015 that many packs of Twix bars from Stenning Hills had been distributed with needles inside. Unfortunately, the 12-year-old who found the needles didn’t know where the needles had come from. There was a huge investigation and the police department in the region issued alerts to the community via their Facebook, and all the news channels distributed the same warnings.
20. More Pills
Police in California reported in 2014 that a young girl from Sacramento had opened up a piece of candy only to find two unidentified pills shoved into the chocolate. After seeing the pills, the poor girl said that she never wanted to go out Trick or Treating again.