Drugged chocolates? Razor blades in apples? Here's what 'the world’s leading authority on poisoned Halloween candy' says:

Not so much. That's according to self-professed expert, Joel Best professor of sociology and criminal justice at the University of Delaware:

"I became skeptical about Halloween sadism while I was a grad student. I couldn’t understand what would lead someone to hand out poisoned Halloween candy. When I’d say this to my friends, they’d be outraged: 'Of course people do that! That’s just what people like that do!'

"Eventually, I decided to test this. I figured that a child killed by a poisoned treat would be a big news story, so I looked at 25 years of Halloween coverage in The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune—the most prominent papers in the nation’s three biggest urban areas. I could not find a single report of a child who had been killed or seriously injured by a contaminated treat picked up on the course of trick-or-treating.

"To be sure, one boy had died after his father gave him poisoned candy. Presumably, his father figured that so many kids were poisoned by Halloween maniacs that the death wouldn’t arouse suspicion. He was wrong on both counts and was arrested, convicted and eventually executed. The story of that poisoning—in Texas, a long way from New York, L.A. or Chicago—made all three papers, and reports of a couple other deaths were followed by retractions. One little boy had gotten into his uncle’s heroin stash and so on. That the press hadn’t covered any cases seemed telling.

"I published my results in 1985 in a sociology journal and wrote a shorter piece for Psychology Today...  Each year, I update my research and post the new version on the UD library’s UDSpace [UD’s institutional repository], but my conclusions haven’t changed... My data now cover more than 50 years, and I still haven’t found a documented case of a child who was seriously harmed by a contaminated treat. I can’t say it has never happened; after all, logicians tell us that it is impossible to prove a negative. But I can say with great confidence that it isn’t common. Nonetheless, people still worry...

"I’ve come to realize that, regardless of how much attention my research receives, some people won’t be convinced. An urban legend is harder to kill than a vampire."

Here's a link to Professor Best's research: Halloween Sadism: the evidence.

Have a happy and safe Halloween!

Source: Insurance Jouirnal