To celebrate this wonderful spooky time of year, I decided to look back at some Halloween-timed true crime cases. Surprise surprise, what a bummer!

Halloween Murders

Halloween now definitely looks a lot different than it did when I was a kid. And in 1974 it was a different world completely. Parents now have to be extremely cautious about the candy their children receive, searching for razor blades and tampering. Sometimes even the idea of trick-or-treating seems too dangerous, going up to people’s houses and asking them for candy!

The Candy Man

Ronald, who came to be known as The Candy Man was a slimy scaly man who had gotten into quite a bit of debt and decided to put some insurance policies on his children. He had poisoned the Pixie Stix with cyanide in order to cash out the policy on Timothy. Ronald was found guilty of the murder of Timothy a year later and was sentenced to death.

This was one of the first instances where people started checking their children’s candy, fearing that someone could do something similar.

Yoshihiro Hattori

Yoshihiro Hattori was in New Orleans as a Japanese exchange student in 1992. He had been invited to a Halloween party and was making his way through this unfamiliar neighborhood. He finally found the address and knocked on the door. To his surprise, no one answered. As he was walking away towards his car, to try to find the right address Rodney Peairs opened his door and shot Hattori with a revolver.

Peairs claimed he thought that the student was there to do harm to him or his property. I smell a lie. Even more infuriatingly, Peairs was found ‘not guilty of manslaughter because of the “castle doctrine” (the right in America to apply lethal means to protect their homes). This clearly doesn’t apply because 1) Yoshihiro was walking away and 2) it was reported that when Rodney opened the door, Yoshihiro told him “We are here for the party”.

The fact that this was Halloween night, and Rodney probably had plenty of people coming up to his door, I truly doubt he thought he was in any real danger. Whatever his reason was, he deserved to go to prison and serve the time for Yoshihiro Hattori’s senseless murder.

Karl Jackson

Sometimes the tricks of trick-or-treating become suddenly tragic. Such is the case with an egging prank that went wrong. There are at least 24 cases of violence and murder that stem from an egging prank.

One of those situations was with 21-year-old Karl Jackson in 1998 in the Bronx. He and his girlfriend went to pick up her son from a Halloween party when teenagers started throwing eggs at Karl’s car. He then got out of the car to yell at them to stop. Sadly, one of the teenagers pulled out a gun and shot Karl in the head. He died instantly.

This stupid and needless act of violence haunts the Jackson family still today. Curtis Sterling (17 years old) was arrested and charged with Karl’s murder. He got sentenced to 20 years. Gloria Jackson, Karl’s mom, writes Curtis a card every Halloween that simply states, “I’m glad you’re still there.”

Happy Halloween!

While I dearly love Halloween and the decorations and skeletons and spooky fun, these three stories are a good reminder that the world has plenty of monsters already in it. It almost makes me want to curl up in a ball and never leave the house again. Almost. But that idea leaves me with the whole becoming a hermit option, which really isn’t much of an option at all. Plus, am I really going to let some creeps keep me from living my life?

This Halloween, I plan on spending time with loved ones and eating lots of candy. And as you’re out trick-or-treating or celebrating with your loved ones, keep your eye out for one another. Stay safe and rock on, despite the monsters of the world!

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