“The Razor Blade in the Apple: The Social Construction of Urban Legends”, 1985-06-01 (; backlinks; similar):
This paper examines the widespread belief that anonymous sadists give children dangerous treats on Halloween.
A review of news stories about Halloween sadism 1958–25198341ya suggests that the threat has been greatly exaggerated.
Halloween sadism can be viewed as an urban legend, which emerged during the early 1970s to give expression to growing fears about the safety of children, the danger of crime, and other sources of social strain. Urban legends, like collective behavior and social problems construction, are responses to social strain, shaped by the perception of the threat and social organization.
The 1970s witnessed the discovery of a frightening new deviant—the Halloween sadist, who gave dangerous, adulterated treats to children. Each year, Halloween’s approach brought warnings to parents:
“…that plump red apple that Junior gets from a kindly old woman down the block…may have a razor blade hidden inside” (New York Times 1970).
“If this year’s Halloween follows form, a few children will return home with something more than an upset tummy: in recent years, several children have died and hundreds have narrowly escaped injury from razor blades, sewing needles and shards of glass purposefully put into their goodies by adults” (Newsweek 1975).
“It’s Halloween again and time to remind you that…[s]omebody’s child will become violently ill or die after eating poisoned candy or an apple containing a razor blade” (Van 1983).
Various authorities responded to the threat: legislatures in California (197153ya) and New Jersey (198242ya) passed laws against Halloween sadism; schools trained children to inspect their treats for signs of tampering; and some communities tried to ban trick-or-treating (1974). According to press reports, many parents restricted their children’s trick-or-treating, examined their treats, or arranged parties or other indoor celebrations (New York Times 1972; Los Angeles Times 1982). By 1984, the threat of Halloween sadists was apparently taken for granted. Doubts about the threat’s reality rarely appeared in print. Several Oregon third graders wrote letters to a newspaper: “I wish people wouldn’t put poison in our Halloween treats” (Times 1984). Adults questioned for an Illinois newspaper’s “Sidewalk Interview” column (DeKalb Daily Chronicle 1984) expressed concern: “…part of it is checking to make sure you know your neighbors and checking the candy. I think it’s terrible that people are doing this and I guess people’s morals have to be examined.” “Dear Abby” printed a letter describing a North Carolina hospital’s program to X-ray treats (Van 1984); radiologists at a Hanford, California hospital checked 500 bags of treats (Fresno Bee 1984). In 1985, 327 students at California State University, Fresno wrote essays for an upper-division writing examination, advocating the abolition of some holiday. Nearly a third (105 students) wrote about Halloween, and 90% of those essays mentioned the threat of Halloween sadism.
…Our search found stories about 76 alleged incidents of Halloween sadism, which included at least the community where the incident occurred and the nature of the attack. Table 1 shows the number of incidents reported in each year.
Obviously, the 76 incidents identified through this procedure do not form a complete list of cases of Halloween sadism. However, there are several reasons why it is unlikely that many serious incidents—involving deaths or serious injuries—were overlooked. First, the papers’ coverage was national. The 76 reported incidents came from 15 states and 2 Canadian provinces; while each of the 4 newspapers concentrated on incidents in its own region, all reported cases from other regions. All 4 included at least one case from the South—the only major region without a newspaper in the sample. Second, the 76 reported cases were generally not serious. Injuries were reported in only 20 cases, and only 2 of these involved deaths.
…Table 1 reveals 2 peaks in the pattern of reporting. 31 of the 76 incidents occurred in the 3 years 1969–2197153ya. This wave of reports encouraged recognition of Halloween sadism as a threat. As a holiday when millions of children venture out at night, Halloween has a long history of tragic accidents. Routinely, newspapers and magazines print lists of safety tips, warning parents against flammable costumes, masks that obscure the wearer’s vision, and the like. A systematic review of such lists found no mention of the danger posed by sadists before 1972; but, from that year on, lists of safety tips almost invariably warned parents to inspect their children’s treats for signs of tampering. At the same time that these warnings spread, reports of Halloween sadism fell to a few per year until 1982, when there was a dramatic increase. Of course, this reflected the fear caused by the Tylenol murders. A month before Halloween, 7 people died after swallowing poisoned Extra-Strength Tylenol capsules. In the weeks that followed, there were hundreds of reports of “copycats” adulterating food, over-the-counter medications, and other household products. As Halloween approached, the media repeatedly warned parents that trick-or-treaters would be in danger. After raising the specter of Halloween sadism, the press naturally covered the incidents that were reported. A year later, however, coverage fell to pre-Tylenol levels.
Examining the reports of the 76 incidents leads to 3 conclusions. First, the threat of Halloween sadism has been greatly exaggerated. There is simply no basis for Newsweek’s (197549ya) claim that “several children have died.” The newspapers attributed only 2 deaths to Halloween sadists, and neither case fit the image of a maniacal killer randomly attacking children:
In 1970, 5-year-old Kevin Toston died after eating heroin supposedly hidden in his Halloween candy.
While this story received considerable publicity, newspapers gave less coverage to the follow-up report that Kevin had found the heroin in his uncle’s home, not his treats (San Francisco Chronicle 1970).
The second death is more notorious. In 1974, 8-year-old Timothy O’Bryan died after eating Halloween candy contaminated with cyanide.
Investigators concluded that his father had contaminated the treat (1982). Thus, both boys’ deaths were caused by family members, rather than by anonymous sadists.
…A second conclusion is that many, if not most, reports of Halloween sadism are of questionable authenticity. Children who go trick-or-treating know about Halloween sadism; they have been warned by their parents, teachers, and friends. A child who “discovers” an adulterated treat stands to be rewarded with the concerned attention of parents and, perhaps, police officers and reporters. Such a hoax is consistent with Halloween traditions of trickery, just as the fear of sadists resembles the more traditional dread of ghosts and witches (1983). The 76 reported incidents included two cases that were identified as hoaxes at the time, and it seems likely that other cases involved undiscovered fraud. After all, it is remarkable that 3⁄4ths of the children who reported receiving contaminated treats had no injuries.
Efforts to systematically follow up reports of Halloween sadism have concluded that the vast majority were fabrications. After Halloween 1972, Editor and Publisher 1973—the trade magazine of the newspaper industry—examined several papers’ efforts to trace all local reports of Halloween sadism; it concluded that virtually all the reports were hoaxes. 10 years later, in the wake of the Tylenol scare, the confectionary industry tried to reassure potential customers in a “white paper” on Halloween candy tampering in 1982 (National Confectioners Association et al n.d.) The report noted that “more than 95% of the 270 potential Halloween 1982 candy adulterations analyzed by the Food and Drug Administration have shown no tampering, which has led one FDA official to characterize the period as one of ‘psychosomatic mass hysteria’.” Further, a confectionary industry survey of police departments in “24 of the nation’s largest cities, as well as smaller towns in which highly-publicized incidents were alleged to have occurred, found 2 reports of injuries—neither requiring medical treatment—from among the hundreds of claims of candy tampering.”’ Thus, not only does a survey of press coverage reveal fewer reports of Halloween sadism than might be expected, but there is good reason to suspect that many of the reports are unfounded.