Oct. 30, 2024

The Original Candyman: Ronald O'Brien

The Original Candyman: Ronald O'Brien

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Season 6

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In this intense episode of Unspeakable, KJ investigates the chilling true story of Ronald O'Brien, who fatally poisoned his eight-year-old son Timothy with a Pixie Stick on Halloween. KJ explores the contrast between the festive atmosphere of trick-or-treating and Ronald's dark intentions, revealing his financial desperation behind the tragic betrayal. As the investigation unfolds, Kelly reveals the shocking revelations of of Ronald's calculated motives.

Timestamps
04:18 The Dark Side of Halloween
04:50 The O'Brien Family
05:48 Trick-or-Treating Begins
08:57 A Shocking Discovery
12:24 Tragedy Strikes
17:24 The Investigation Begins
20:41 The Shocking Cause
25:59 Unraveling the Mystery
31:33 The Cyanide Connection
36:23 A Father's Plan
37:38 Life Insurance Motive
51:57 Ronald's Calculated Evil

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WEBVTT

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Welcome to Unspeakable, a true crime podcast. Or I tell

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stories of real crimes with real victims whose cases are

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so shocking that many are left wondering how is this

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even real? I use my experiences in law enforcement corrections,

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and combined with my years as a criminal justice educator,

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dig deep into complex cases of evil acts, some so

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evil many feel they are unspeakable.

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Warning.

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Unspeakable as intended for mature audiences. If you are easily offended,

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then I'm not your girl. Listening discretion is advised. Hey y'all,

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kJ you're back for another episode of Unspeakable and it's

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the week of Halloween. Are y'all excited? I'm excited. My

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kids are excited, and we'd like to go do our

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trick or treating. Woo and uh hey, if you're watching

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me podcast on Patreon, you might be wondering why there's

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not as much light as usual. Mama's rocking a headache today.

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I'm not gonna lie, so hey, the Dark Edition is

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what you're getting to David, thank you so much for

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joining in. Before I get started, I've got some shout outs,

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and this one was rough for me. I Jimothy can

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attest to this that I spent a lot of time

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trying to say y'all's names right, but miss Dana in

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Michigan gave me a run for my money.

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All right, Dana, here we go.

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I'm giving my shout out to Dana Cognettesney, Cognettesney.

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Did I get it right?

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Dana?

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I hope I did. I tried really hard.

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I even looked it up and I listened to an example,

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So I hope I have you right. But if not,

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hey girl, how are you doing? Thank you so much

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for joining and I'm so thrilled to have you, as

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well as Cassie Land and Monument Colorado. Hey, Cassie, how

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are things over there? My aunt and uncle moved to Colorado,

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have a beautiful home with the nice big, you know,

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mountains and things in the back and the snowfalling and

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it's just absolutely beautiful.

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So hello all the way over there.

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And then I've got Christine Trewinsky from Billings, Montana. Hey, Christine, Wow, Montana.

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That's set a first I don't remember, but I don't

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feel like I've said Montana a lot.

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How are you doing? Christine?

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Thank you times a million for joining my team here.

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And then I've got Shannon Mitchell in Dresden, Ohio, all

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the way, y'all, all over the country. It's so neat

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for me to say hey to y'all all the way

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over there. I hope that you are having the best week, Shannon,

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and tell everybody in Ohio that I said hello. And

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then I don't have a last name here, it just

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says Mandy. So the Mandy in Denim Springs, Louisiana. Right

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here where I'm at, Hey, Mandy, where you at, I'll

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beach at the Walmart. Come say hey. Thank you for

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joining again, y'all. I could not do this without you.

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I'm so excited in the next few months to be

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wrapping up my teaching job and doing this full time

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and giving you so much more content. And you people,

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the names I read out, y'all, are the reason I'm

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able to do this, and so thank you, thank you,

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Thank you. Now, last but not least, from Cedar Lake, Indiana,

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I've got miss Katie Hergan Rother Hi, Katie high High, Hi.

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I hope you're doing so well this week. And I've

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got a really good episode for y'all today. Now, like

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I said this one, it's the week of Halloween. We've

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had us a little chill in the air down here.

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I don't know if it was considered a chill elsewhere,

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but to us, it's a little chill. And all the kids,

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young and old alike. When you're driving around town and

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you're looking about, everyone is just excitedly buying their costumes

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or getting ready for all the candy. The kids are

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ready to just stuff their faces with all of the chocolate.

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And when you're thinking about Halloween, you realize that there's

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no evil in the minds of.

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Kids, just fun.

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Right, dress up, be somebody that you're not, and maybe

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you get a scare or two, but it's all about

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the fun and the joy, and then ultimately there's treats

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that we're going to get at the end of the day.

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And the excitement of being someone or something you know

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that you're not normally, that's always fun to kind of

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get to play pretend for a while. It's when an

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adult takes on the role of not being who you

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think they are where things start to become dark and

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devious and evil, as you may know, is very real.

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And this case that I'm getting into is one that

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actually affects us. All everyone that's listening right Now, the

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story I'm going to tell you is the literal reason

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why we all check our children's candy when we return

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home from trick or treating. It's this one. Treats are awesome,

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but tricks those can be deadly. So this story is

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going to take place in Deer Park, which is a

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sub suburb of Houston, so we're going to be in Texas,

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and this was the home of Ronald O'Brien, his wife Denen,

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and their two children. They had a son named Timothy

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and a daughter named Elizabeth, And while certainly nowhere near

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the realm of being a rich family, they did do

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their best to try to be a happy family. And

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they struggled financially, big financial struggles, but they always did

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the best with what they had, and regardless of their

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financial struggles, Ronald wanted his kids to have a happy Halloween.

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So sure, you know, Halloween had not been one of

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his favorite you know, holidays in the past, But when

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this case took place, he really was needing to pick

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me up. The family was wanting to pick me up,

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and this was going to be fun. So he went

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down excitedly to the store and he bought costumes for

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both of his two kids, and this.

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Was about two weeks before Halloween.

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Ronald was literally giddy as well whenever he brought him

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home and they were talking about the big day to come,

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and oh my god, the kids were getting real costumes.

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They were gonna look so awesome, and they couldn't wait

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to be running from house to house just grabbing up

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all the candy and just being so excited in the

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fun of the night. And then the following week, Ronald

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spoke to his buddy. His buddies' names was Jimmy Bates,

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and they talked about what all they were gonna be

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doing as families for the trick or treat festivities. So

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in that discussion they decided, well, wait, why don't we

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all just get together and it'd be a lot of

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fun if we get you get together and we share dinner,

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and then Halloween night will let all the kids go

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trick or treating together. That would be a whole lot

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of fun. So sure, that's what we're gonna do. Afterwards,

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they were gonna take all the kids and the families

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would unite and then as a big, big group, we'll

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go walking together and then the kids can socialize and

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have a bunch of fun screaming and hollering, but the

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adults have somebody to talk to while they're walking the neighborhood.

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It's a plan, right, sounds great. Finally, all the big

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day came and Ronald was excited. They woke up that morning,

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he went to work as usual, though he had to

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go to work. Kids have to go to school. And

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where was he working? I wanted to tell you that.

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So he was working as an optician at Texas State Optical.

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So he was an eye care specialist and his job

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was basically to help the customers pick out their eyeglasses

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or their contact lenses, and then he helped with some

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other vision correctional devices as well in the.

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Scope of what he did.

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So after work, he ran home, he gathered Denean and

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the kids and then they set off for the Bates

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House for the fun of the night to come. And

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when they got there, Jimmy and his family already had

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dinner ready, so it was like they were like, we

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got a hurry, right, so we don't miss the time

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that we start doing all our trick or treating. So

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they all greeted one another and then they promptly sat

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down and they enjoyed dinner together, had a great time.

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Dinner went well, and then the kids were getting super restless.

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Can we go trick or treating? Can we go tricker treating?

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So they got ready in their costumes, and then they

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hit the neighborhood. It was on and they were in

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the process of getting ready right before they were going

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to exit the door, when the weather suddenly took a

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turn for the worst, and before they could hit the road,

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it started pouring rain outside. So the kids got super bummed.

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And hey, if you've been around kids or you've been

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a good hell at Halloween and the plans get washed out,

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there is no bigger suck than that you want to

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go do these things. But luckily for the kids, the

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rain actually started letting up, and eventually it led up

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enough that they said, look, we're still going to go

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trick or treating. It got delayed, but we are going.

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Let's do this, yes, And so the plans of course

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had to be shortened because of that rain. And then

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also in that little delay that there was, one of

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the Baits children decided that he didn't want to go

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trick or treating either, so that kid stayed home. I

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don't want to go out in the rain. No problem,

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you're missing out though, because we're going to have the fun.

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So the dad's kind of made a plan that they

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would take the kids trick or treating, but only on

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one or two streets, and those streets specifically were Citation

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Street and Donne Rail Street. And the group that set

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out together included mister Bates, one of his children, Ronald

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with his two children, Timothy and Elizabeth, and they had

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a system set up of how they were gonna go

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up to the houses. So mister Bates would stay on

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the sidewalk, and Ronald agreed that he would walk up

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to the doors of the homes with the kids every

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time they turned to go up the sidewalk. So the

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kids made their way to the home of Courtney and

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Carolyn Melvin after they had started trick or treating. They

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just happened upon this house of Courtney and Carolyn Meldon,

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and the kids ran up and they knocked on the door,

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and they were giddy and they were waiting for someone

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to come to the door. Nobody came, so they waited

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a bit, they knocked again, but eventually they realized no

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one's gonna come to the door. Nobody must be home,

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and so they tore off the yard into the neck

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house to go knock on their door.

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So mister Bates was.

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Watching the kids run across the yard and then go

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up to the next door, and that's when he realized

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that Ronald wasn't with them.

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So a few moments.

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Later, he kind of looked back at the previous house

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and he saw that the stoop of that home was dark,

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and it was kind of dark in the area around

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the home where the kids had cut through to run

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to the next house, and so he was looking for Ronald,

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and then Ronald popped out from where the dark was

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and he came really excitedly from that dark area of

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the house and he was kind of had his hands

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in the air and he was like, yeah, he was

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all excited. He's like, guys, look, look, look, and he's

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holding up these giant pixie sticks, the big time ones,

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and he was so excited because these were not the

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little bitty, cheap ones. These were those big ones with

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the tons of sugar in them, and he was waving

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them back and forth in the air, and he goes the.

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Rich neighbors were giving out expensive trees. Look at these kids.

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And so we was like, awesome, Dad.

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They were so excited, what a win to get these

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big old treats, and so the kids wanted them, and

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so Ronald handed them out to the kids, and then

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the kids realized these are kind of big. We don't

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want to hold these while were running, so he said, here,

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hand them back to me. I'll hold them and y'all

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can keep trick or treating. And so he held them

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for the rest of the after of the evening when

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they were going up and down the two streets, until

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00:11:23.559 --> 00:11:25.600
the kids got done trick or treating and they made

224
00:11:25.639 --> 00:11:28.639
it back to the Baits' home. So once they got back,

225
00:11:29.000 --> 00:11:32.159
Ronald again handed those back out to the kids, and

226
00:11:32.240 --> 00:11:36.120
even the Baits' kids got the other ones that were

227
00:11:36.159 --> 00:11:38.559
given to him, even though they had not one of

228
00:11:38.559 --> 00:11:40.559
them had not gone trick or treating, that kids still

229
00:11:40.559 --> 00:11:42.480
got one too. There were plenty of them, so as

230
00:11:42.480 --> 00:11:45.159
the kids looked through their loot all excitedly showing off

231
00:11:45.159 --> 00:11:47.919
their treats to everybody, the trick or treating night wasn't

232
00:11:47.960 --> 00:11:50.360
actually quite over yet, and so other kids from the

233
00:11:50.399 --> 00:11:53.960
neighborhood continued to knock on the Baits's door looking for

234
00:11:54.039 --> 00:11:55.960
candy and trick or treating back at the house where

235
00:11:56.000 --> 00:11:59.559
the kids had returned to. So Ronald answered the door,

236
00:11:59.720 --> 00:12:03.480
you know, periodically with other adults. But Ronald answered the

237
00:12:03.480 --> 00:12:07.200
door periodically and a child that was there mentioned in

238
00:12:07.240 --> 00:12:08.480
the trick or treating discussion.

239
00:12:08.519 --> 00:12:09.720
He goes, oh, I go to your church.

240
00:12:09.799 --> 00:12:12.440
We go to church together, and so, feeling a special

241
00:12:12.440 --> 00:12:16.039
connection with that child, Ronald surprised that kid and said,

242
00:12:16.039 --> 00:12:17.200
you know what I'm gonna give you. I've got one

243
00:12:17.200 --> 00:12:19.120
of these left, and he gave him one of the

244
00:12:19.159 --> 00:12:23.240
giant pixie sticks. The kid was like, yes, right, squealed

245
00:12:23.240 --> 00:12:25.720
with excitement, waving it in the air, and Ronald was

246
00:12:25.759 --> 00:12:27.720
tickled too to see the smile of the kid's face.

247
00:12:28.120 --> 00:12:30.240
Pay it forward. We don't need all this candy, we

248
00:12:30.240 --> 00:12:32.320
have plenty, and so the kid grabbed it, ran down

249
00:12:32.360 --> 00:12:33.759
the street excited.

250
00:12:34.360 --> 00:12:35.679
Ronald shuts the door. Good time.

251
00:12:36.720 --> 00:12:39.519
So the hours kind of wind down and finally the

252
00:12:39.600 --> 00:12:42.840
day was over. So tired full of junk, you know,

253
00:12:42.879 --> 00:12:45.840
the kids are Ronald and the family said they're goodbye

254
00:12:45.840 --> 00:12:48.440
to each other. They thanked the Bates family for the dinner,

255
00:12:48.679 --> 00:12:51.279
and then they gave their hugs goodbye, and they head

256
00:12:51.320 --> 00:12:53.919
off to go back to the house. Well Denien, the

257
00:12:54.000 --> 00:12:56.519
mother decided that she wanted to go stop by a

258
00:12:56.559 --> 00:12:59.240
friend of hers house on the way home. So Ronald said,

259
00:12:59.279 --> 00:13:01.519
no big deal. I'll bring the kids home, I'll get

260
00:13:01.559 --> 00:13:03.919
them settled in, I'll get them bathed while you go

261
00:13:04.000 --> 00:13:06.279
visit and have some fun with your friends. And she said,

262
00:13:06.320 --> 00:13:08.120
I won't be gone all night, I'll be back in

263
00:13:08.120 --> 00:13:09.360
a little bit. I just want to go swing by

264
00:13:09.360 --> 00:13:11.759
and say hey. So he did exactly what he said.

265
00:13:12.039 --> 00:13:14.320
He drove the kids home, he got him all ready

266
00:13:14.320 --> 00:13:16.799
for bed, and then they did what they all do

267
00:13:17.000 --> 00:13:19.440
every child, Daddy, please, can we have just a few

268
00:13:19.480 --> 00:13:21.320
more candy, Just a little bit more candy before we

269
00:13:21.320 --> 00:13:23.240
go to bed? Can we just have a little bit please?

270
00:13:24.120 --> 00:13:26.600
And he said, okay, fine, but just a little bit, y'all.

271
00:13:27.000 --> 00:13:29.399
We got to get to bed. We're not gonna sit

272
00:13:29.440 --> 00:13:32.360
here and make ourselves sick on candy. So the kids

273
00:13:32.840 --> 00:13:35.000
started to pick out the little bit of candy that

274
00:13:35.039 --> 00:13:37.240
they were going to eat for the night, and eight

275
00:13:37.320 --> 00:13:40.080
year old Timothy wanted to eat some of his giant

276
00:13:40.120 --> 00:13:45.240
pixie stick. So he got the pixie stick. He opens

277
00:13:45.279 --> 00:13:49.399
it and he took one bite of the powder and

278
00:13:49.440 --> 00:13:51.080
the sugar was you know, it was good, but it

279
00:13:51.120 --> 00:13:53.799
seemed to be stuck in the pixie stick and he

280
00:13:53.879 --> 00:13:55.799
was having a really really hard time getting the rest

281
00:13:55.840 --> 00:13:57.240
of the powder out. So he handed it to his

282
00:13:57.320 --> 00:13:59.759
daddy and said, daddy, can you help me. Ronald said, sure,

283
00:13:59.840 --> 00:14:02.759
no problem, and so he took the big straw, the

284
00:14:02.799 --> 00:14:05.480
big plastic straw of the pixie stick, put it between

285
00:14:05.480 --> 00:14:07.919
his hands and he rubbed it back and forth together

286
00:14:08.039 --> 00:14:10.080
to try to break up the powder for his son.

287
00:14:10.960 --> 00:14:12.480
So he handed it back to Timothy.

288
00:14:12.840 --> 00:14:15.679
Timothy took a second big gulp of the powder and

289
00:14:15.759 --> 00:14:19.399
immediately was repulsed by the way that it tastes. He

290
00:14:19.519 --> 00:14:21.799
made a face and was really sad because he's like, oh, no,

291
00:14:21.919 --> 00:14:22.799
it's not good.

292
00:14:22.879 --> 00:14:23.960
It tastes horrible.

293
00:14:25.200 --> 00:14:30.000
The super super bad taste was so strong too, that

294
00:14:30.039 --> 00:14:31.720
he couldn't get the taste out of his mouth.

295
00:14:31.759 --> 00:14:33.799
He was like, this is terrible.

296
00:14:34.639 --> 00:14:36.759
So Ronald was kind of confused by it, and he

297
00:14:36.759 --> 00:14:38.200
looks at it and he said, well, come here. Tim

298
00:14:38.639 --> 00:14:41.320
takes him into the kitchen, pours him a big cup

299
00:14:41.360 --> 00:14:43.600
of kool aid and says, here, wash your mouth out,

300
00:14:43.679 --> 00:14:46.720
drink you some of this. So Ronald handed it to him,

301
00:14:46.759 --> 00:14:48.799
and Tim did exactly what he was told. He drank

302
00:14:48.840 --> 00:14:51.120
the juice, washed his mouth out, and then he ran

303
00:14:51.200 --> 00:14:53.200
back to his bag of candy bummed out, but he

304
00:14:53.279 --> 00:14:54.919
ran back to his bag to go find him something

305
00:14:54.960 --> 00:15:00.960
else to start eating. Within just a minute, maybe two

306
00:15:01.080 --> 00:15:06.000
minutes since he took that bite, Tim started feeling really bad,

307
00:15:07.039 --> 00:15:11.720
really really bad, so bad that he stood up and

308
00:15:11.759 --> 00:15:14.960
he ran straight to the bathroom and he started vomiting,

309
00:15:15.879 --> 00:15:18.399
seriously vomiting too, not just like I've a tommyeg like

310
00:15:18.759 --> 00:15:22.480
really really puking. So worried about him, Ronald goes into

311
00:15:22.519 --> 00:15:24.600
the bathroom and he's checking on him, Son, are you okay,

312
00:15:24.639 --> 00:15:28.120
what's going on? Are you feeling all right? And as

313
00:15:28.159 --> 00:15:32.519
the minutes passed, Tim got exponentially worse.

314
00:15:33.320 --> 00:15:38.080
It was quick, super quick. He got really really sick.

315
00:15:38.320 --> 00:15:41.799
He became so sick within a minute or two after

316
00:15:41.840 --> 00:15:45.240
that that he couldn't even stand up to walk by himself.

317
00:15:45.519 --> 00:15:47.759
So Ronald grabbed him by the waist and kind of

318
00:15:47.799 --> 00:15:50.279
turned him to kind of help him walk. And as

319
00:15:50.320 --> 00:15:53.639
soon as Tim started walking, boom, he flat out collapsed

320
00:15:53.679 --> 00:15:56.000
on the floor. Soon as he hit the floor, he

321
00:15:56.080 --> 00:16:00.360
started having very serious seizures. Convulsions that could not be

322
00:16:00.399 --> 00:16:05.679
controlled and were big time problem. And it wasn't like

323
00:16:05.840 --> 00:16:09.559
this was shake it off time. Tim was in bad,

324
00:16:09.919 --> 00:16:13.159
bad shape. So Ronald ran to the phone. He dialed

325
00:16:13.519 --> 00:16:15.519
nine one one and he said, I need an ambulance.

326
00:16:15.559 --> 00:16:19.240
I need it now. My kid is having seizures. So

327
00:16:19.279 --> 00:16:23.279
the ambulance arrived shortly thereafter, just minutes, and the EMTs

328
00:16:23.320 --> 00:16:26.799
began asking Ronald what happened, what was he doing before

329
00:16:26.879 --> 00:16:31.000
this started happening, So Ronald tried to start explaining it,

330
00:16:31.279 --> 00:16:35.679
but then he himself just became sick, so he excused himself,

331
00:16:35.840 --> 00:16:39.960
ran to the bathroom presumptively vomited. They didn't follow him

332
00:16:39.960 --> 00:16:43.720
in there, and then he returned back and again started

333
00:16:43.720 --> 00:16:45.879
trying to explain what was happening or what his son

334
00:16:45.960 --> 00:16:50.000
was doing before he got sick. But again Ronald got sick,

335
00:16:50.759 --> 00:16:54.080
doubled over, ran back to the bathroom, was sick again.

336
00:16:54.559 --> 00:16:57.759
So the ambulance workers followed him the second time and said, look, man,

337
00:16:57.960 --> 00:16:59.399
do you need our help. We can help you too,

338
00:17:00.000 --> 00:17:01.440
and he waved them off and said, no, I don't

339
00:17:01.480 --> 00:17:01.919
any help.

340
00:17:01.960 --> 00:17:02.559
I'll be fine.

341
00:17:03.399 --> 00:17:05.839
So around this time, Timothy is now being loaded into

342
00:17:05.880 --> 00:17:09.400
the ambulance, which then rushed lights and sirens straight to

343
00:17:09.440 --> 00:17:13.279
the hospital. When it got there, doctors immediately jumped on

344
00:17:13.680 --> 00:17:16.319
to assist the little boy. They began checking his vitals,

345
00:17:16.599 --> 00:17:19.559
running tests, and attempting to figure out what had caused

346
00:17:19.759 --> 00:17:23.680
this horrific onset of symptoms in such a short amount

347
00:17:23.720 --> 00:17:27.519
of time, But their efforts would be completely in vain

348
00:17:28.079 --> 00:17:31.440
because eight year old Timothy would be dead within that

349
00:17:31.559 --> 00:17:36.480
hour from beginning to end, in an hour, tim was gone.

350
00:17:37.880 --> 00:17:41.640
How could this be? It just doesn't even make sense.

351
00:17:42.440 --> 00:17:45.960
A happy, healthy eight year old boy who was running

352
00:17:46.039 --> 00:17:49.440
and excitedly tricker treating door to door, screaming and laughing

353
00:17:49.440 --> 00:17:52.480
and have the time of his life just two hours ago,

354
00:17:53.079 --> 00:17:55.960
and now he lay dead and he was stored in

355
00:17:55.960 --> 00:17:59.400
a hospital freezer. How could this have happened? What could

356
00:17:59.440 --> 00:18:03.279
possibly explain this turn of events? Because it made no

357
00:18:03.400 --> 00:18:08.000
sense to anyone that was involved. So police recalled due

358
00:18:08.000 --> 00:18:12.599
to the strange circumstances, and they had questions as well

359
00:18:12.759 --> 00:18:15.640
because they had to figure this one out. So they

360
00:18:15.640 --> 00:18:21.400
spoke to Ronald, who threw complete shock, explained, look, we

361
00:18:21.440 --> 00:18:24.759
went trigger treating, we came home. He ate this giant

362
00:18:24.839 --> 00:18:27.519
pixie stick or he started to eat it. It didn't

363
00:18:27.519 --> 00:18:30.559
taste good. He washed it down with some juice, and

364
00:18:30.599 --> 00:18:34.119
then he was sick, having the seizures. And now he's gone,

365
00:18:34.759 --> 00:18:37.559
I mean, just complete and utter shock. So where did

366
00:18:37.559 --> 00:18:40.519
the pixie stick come from? Well, Ronald said it came

367
00:18:40.519 --> 00:18:43.400
from the Baits home or the Baits neighborhood. Excuse me,

368
00:18:43.599 --> 00:18:47.000
the Baits neighborhood where they had been trigger or treating earlier.

369
00:18:47.319 --> 00:18:51.240
Other than that, he needed some time. He couldn't be

370
00:18:51.240 --> 00:18:54.359
answering all these questions. He needed some time. All I

371
00:18:54.359 --> 00:18:56.079
know is he got the candy wall trick or treating,

372
00:18:56.319 --> 00:19:00.599
and he was just overwhelmed having to explain it. He

373
00:19:00.680 --> 00:19:03.559
was in shock and he was grieving, But so was

374
00:19:03.599 --> 00:19:06.039
his poor wife, who had just run to a friend's

375
00:19:06.079 --> 00:19:10.759
house and wasn't there for a lot of what took place. Also,

376
00:19:10.880 --> 00:19:15.160
their young daughter, Elizabeth, was completely just stricken with grief.

377
00:19:15.559 --> 00:19:17.319
Where did my brother go? And how is my brother?

378
00:19:17.359 --> 00:19:19.279
What do you mean he's dead? We were just trick

379
00:19:19.359 --> 00:19:22.759
or treating what was supposed to be a day of

380
00:19:22.880 --> 00:19:28.200
fun and excitement. Now would forever mark this holiday with

381
00:19:28.359 --> 00:19:31.920
nothing but sadness and grief. And what was this family

382
00:19:31.920 --> 00:19:36.400
going to do without tim So everyone who knew the

383
00:19:36.400 --> 00:19:40.799
O'Brien family was also completely in shock as well as

384
00:19:40.839 --> 00:19:44.359
the information spread and as the news spread that Timothy died,

385
00:19:44.839 --> 00:19:46.000
and so everyone's asking the.

386
00:19:45.960 --> 00:19:49.119
Same question, what happened? What do you mean you know?

387
00:19:49.160 --> 00:19:50.799
Did he get hit by a car? What happened?

388
00:19:50.960 --> 00:19:55.400
No, none of that. Nobody had answers. And during the

389
00:19:55.480 --> 00:19:59.880
days following Timothy's death, the family attempted to do their

390
00:20:00.079 --> 00:20:03.480
best to answer everyone's questions of what happened, but the

391
00:20:03.519 --> 00:20:07.079
truth be told, they were at a complete loss. They

392
00:20:07.160 --> 00:20:10.160
had suspected maybe what he ate made him sick, but

393
00:20:10.200 --> 00:20:14.440
they didn't have any answers. So police had to keep

394
00:20:14.480 --> 00:20:17.200
asking questions though, to try to get to the bottom

395
00:20:17.200 --> 00:20:22.240
of what had happened. And specifically, they had found out

396
00:20:22.319 --> 00:20:24.720
now that the test results had come back as to

397
00:20:24.799 --> 00:20:28.160
what was in Timothy's system the night he died, and

398
00:20:28.200 --> 00:20:32.880
it was shocking because Timothy's stomach contents had been sampled

399
00:20:32.880 --> 00:20:35.559
at the hospital and the results of the blood test

400
00:20:35.599 --> 00:20:39.720
that was taken showed that it was cyanide in this

401
00:20:39.880 --> 00:20:46.759
young boy system. Cyanide what in the world. Specifically, he

402
00:20:46.799 --> 00:20:50.440
had four or point four milligrams in his system and

403
00:20:50.519 --> 00:20:53.680
for reference, because I looked it up, a fatal dose

404
00:20:53.799 --> 00:20:57.359
would have been point two, so I mean he had

405
00:20:57.400 --> 00:20:59.359
like double the amount that it would have taken to

406
00:20:59.440 --> 00:21:04.160
kill the young boy. So police now wanted answers, and

407
00:21:04.200 --> 00:21:07.000
it seemed that pixie stick was the common theme in

408
00:21:07.039 --> 00:21:13.279
the situation surrounding Tim's death. So Ronald, as he's being

409
00:21:13.359 --> 00:21:18.400
questioned over the days, started giving conflicting accounts of where

410
00:21:18.440 --> 00:21:22.960
exactly the pixie stick came from. But under the circumstances

411
00:21:22.960 --> 00:21:24.960
and the fact that they were trick or treating, it

412
00:21:25.039 --> 00:21:28.200
was like he was getting confused exactly maybe which house

413
00:21:28.279 --> 00:21:31.640
it came from. But eventually he was able to literally

414
00:21:31.720 --> 00:21:34.880
go and point out to the police, this is the

415
00:21:34.920 --> 00:21:38.960
house right here. This is the house where I got

416
00:21:38.960 --> 00:21:41.880
the pixie sticks from, and it was on Donrail Street.

417
00:21:42.519 --> 00:21:45.160
And he was also able to give a description of

418
00:21:45.240 --> 00:21:49.720
the actual person who handed him those pixie sticks. And

419
00:21:49.799 --> 00:21:55.440
the description that Ronald gave did in fact match within

420
00:21:55.599 --> 00:22:02.400
reason Courtney Melvin, who the homeowner. So it's like, Aha,

421
00:22:02.799 --> 00:22:04.960
we got us a little trail here that we can follow.

422
00:22:06.079 --> 00:22:10.839
So in the moment that this is all kind of

423
00:22:10.839 --> 00:22:15.279
taking place, Courtney Melvin happened to be standing in a

424
00:22:15.319 --> 00:22:20.359
crowd of people in the neighborhood, and so whenever Ronald

425
00:22:20.400 --> 00:22:23.240
saw him, he was quoted as being and this is

426
00:22:23.279 --> 00:22:27.920
a direct quote, almost positive end quote, that that is

427
00:22:27.960 --> 00:22:29.680
the man who handed.

428
00:22:29.359 --> 00:22:30.960
Me those pixie sticks.

429
00:22:31.599 --> 00:22:34.359
So police jumped on this lead and they decided, we

430
00:22:34.400 --> 00:22:36.640
want to have a word with you. We want to

431
00:22:36.720 --> 00:22:39.559
talk to you, mister Melvin, and we want to talk

432
00:22:39.599 --> 00:22:42.680
specifically to you about the candy that you were hanging

433
00:22:42.759 --> 00:22:46.599
out on Halloween. Maybe it could have been that the

434
00:22:46.680 --> 00:22:49.920
candy was somehow contaminated unbeknownst to them.

435
00:22:50.079 --> 00:22:52.640
Before they bought it, you know, at the store.

436
00:22:52.920 --> 00:22:58.680
But cyanide, how Cyanide's not something that's readily available in

437
00:22:58.680 --> 00:23:01.799
little cyanide packets at the store, So this had to

438
00:23:01.839 --> 00:23:06.519
be way more detailed than just something that simple, regardless

439
00:23:06.519 --> 00:23:09.279
of what it might have been. They spoke to Courtney

440
00:23:09.279 --> 00:23:12.440
Melvin and they asked him about the events of Halloween,

441
00:23:12.680 --> 00:23:15.880
and they wanted him to be very specific and don't

442
00:23:15.920 --> 00:23:20.519
leave anything out. And Courtney Melvin was perplexed by this,

443
00:23:21.400 --> 00:23:24.200
and he said, what do you mean the candy that

444
00:23:24.240 --> 00:23:26.200
I handed out on Halloween night? They said, we want

445
00:23:26.200 --> 00:23:28.400
to know exactly what happened, and he said, okay, well

446
00:23:28.400 --> 00:23:30.559
I can sum it up for you. I left for

447
00:23:30.640 --> 00:23:33.359
work at one point thirty in the afternoon and I

448
00:23:33.440 --> 00:23:36.960
didn't get home until ten forty five pm. I didn't

449
00:23:36.960 --> 00:23:42.240
hand out any candy on Halloween. So police are like, yeah, right,

450
00:23:43.279 --> 00:23:46.480
you know, so wondering if they could prove his alibi.

451
00:23:47.279 --> 00:23:48.599
They said, all right, well we're going to go to

452
00:23:48.640 --> 00:23:50.319
your work and follow up on this, and he was

453
00:23:50.519 --> 00:23:55.799
very confident and said go for it, please do please

454
00:23:55.799 --> 00:24:01.000
go follow up. So how was he so confident in this, Well,

455
00:24:01.640 --> 00:24:05.200
the truth is because it's the truth. When they followed

456
00:24:05.279 --> 00:24:08.880
up his work, one hundred percent said yep, he was here.

457
00:24:09.160 --> 00:24:12.200
He worked an evening ship shift and it's proven beyond

458
00:24:12.240 --> 00:24:16.759
a shadow of a doubt he was here. So back

459
00:24:16.799 --> 00:24:20.039
to Ronald. Then, mister Ronald, he was certain that he

460
00:24:20.079 --> 00:24:24.119
saw Courtney Melvin there. But there's no way that is

461
00:24:24.160 --> 00:24:27.960
not true. It can't be true. Well, maybe the timing

462
00:24:28.079 --> 00:24:32.319
was off that Ronald gave. So they spoke to miss

463
00:24:32.319 --> 00:24:34.759
Melvin and she says, well, wait a minute, we did

464
00:24:34.799 --> 00:24:39.079
hand out candy. I handed out candy that night, but

465
00:24:39.279 --> 00:24:42.559
I ran out of candy at six forty five and

466
00:24:42.599 --> 00:24:44.440
then I never answered the door. After that, because I

467
00:24:44.440 --> 00:24:46.880
didn't have anything to give the kids, but I handed

468
00:24:46.880 --> 00:24:50.480
out candy, not my husband. He wasn't here, he was

469
00:24:50.519 --> 00:24:54.160
at work, So it was kind of curious. Okay, well,

470
00:24:54.200 --> 00:24:56.440
what kind of candy did you give out? She starts

471
00:24:56.480 --> 00:24:59.359
listing the candy that she gave, and she listed everything

472
00:24:59.440 --> 00:25:03.799
under the sun, but she never ever mentioned pixie sticks,

473
00:25:04.119 --> 00:25:08.039
and she certainly did not have giant pixie sticks, the

474
00:25:08.079 --> 00:25:12.640
expensive ones. Even so, even if that were the case

475
00:25:12.680 --> 00:25:14.960
that she did hand out the candy, there were no

476
00:25:15.079 --> 00:25:18.880
trick or treaters out and about going door to door

477
00:25:18.920 --> 00:25:21.599
at ten forty five pm, which was the time that

478
00:25:21.640 --> 00:25:26.240
Melvin came home, so there's no way Ronald could have

479
00:25:26.319 --> 00:25:32.200
seen Courtney Melvin at the house. So either way, it

480
00:25:32.359 --> 00:25:36.799
wasn't driving what was being said. So police then went

481
00:25:36.839 --> 00:25:40.519
to every home on the route that the two families

482
00:25:40.519 --> 00:25:42.680
took that night when they were trick or treating to

483
00:25:42.799 --> 00:25:44.680
follow up and say what candy did you hand out?

484
00:25:44.680 --> 00:25:47.240
What candy did you hand out? And not only did

485
00:25:47.240 --> 00:25:50.759
the Melvins not hand out giant pixie sticks, but neither

486
00:25:50.839 --> 00:25:54.680
did any of the homes that night, as in none

487
00:25:54.680 --> 00:25:59.480
of them, not one house handed out giant pixie sticks.

488
00:26:00.519 --> 00:26:03.799
So now beg the question was Ronald making this up?

489
00:26:04.720 --> 00:26:07.880
And why would he make that up? So the police said,

490
00:26:07.880 --> 00:26:09.880
you know, maybe we need to take a closer look

491
00:26:09.880 --> 00:26:13.680
into the O'Brien family, specifically Ronald, because he was the

492
00:26:13.680 --> 00:26:16.680
one that pointed out somebody and said that man handed

493
00:26:16.720 --> 00:26:20.400
me Pixi sticks. And what they found about him seemed

494
00:26:20.400 --> 00:26:23.799
to be overall normal. He was an everyday guy. He

495
00:26:23.839 --> 00:26:27.039
was a positive person within the community. He was a

496
00:26:27.079 --> 00:26:30.880
deacon at the Second Baptist Church. He was a choir

497
00:26:30.920 --> 00:26:34.599
member as well, and he loved participating in church and

498
00:26:34.640 --> 00:26:37.160
all of the joy that that brought to him. And

499
00:26:37.200 --> 00:26:39.960
he was also a man that had a work history.

500
00:26:40.039 --> 00:26:42.559
He had worked in a couple of trades, everything from

501
00:26:42.920 --> 00:26:46.160
insurance sales to working for a chemical company.

502
00:26:46.559 --> 00:26:47.640
But now he was.

503
00:26:47.640 --> 00:26:50.480
Working, like I told you before, as that optician at

504
00:26:50.519 --> 00:26:55.680
Texas State Optical. But nothing about Ronald's home life, or

505
00:26:55.720 --> 00:26:58.960
his work life, or his church life seemed to scream

506
00:26:59.079 --> 00:27:02.720
a red flag. So police decided that they needed to

507
00:27:02.759 --> 00:27:05.960
look a little further into his life, and during their

508
00:27:05.960 --> 00:27:09.599
look into Ronald's employment, police found that his take home

509
00:27:09.680 --> 00:27:14.079
salary was a whopping one hundred and fifty dollars a week,

510
00:27:14.880 --> 00:27:17.640
and this kind of backed up the fact that they

511
00:27:17.640 --> 00:27:20.759
were struggling financially because there wasn't a lot of money

512
00:27:20.920 --> 00:27:26.559
going into this household. And this hunch was also confirmed

513
00:27:27.039 --> 00:27:29.799
whenever they found out that he had just recently sold

514
00:27:29.920 --> 00:27:33.799
their home and had reaped a six thousand dollars proceed

515
00:27:33.839 --> 00:27:38.519
from it. Well, that six thousand dollars didn't really amount

516
00:27:38.559 --> 00:27:41.240
to much at all, because even though they got that money,

517
00:27:41.279 --> 00:27:44.359
they quickly spent it to fulfill pass filled past due

518
00:27:44.400 --> 00:27:49.119
bills and to cover other like credit cards and stuff

519
00:27:49.200 --> 00:27:51.960
like that. It didn't even cover everything that he owed,

520
00:27:52.039 --> 00:27:54.599
so they were still in debt even after making six

521
00:27:54.640 --> 00:27:57.680
thousand dollars off the sale of their home. So to

522
00:27:57.759 --> 00:28:01.079
say that they were doing horrible with their personal finances,

523
00:28:01.559 --> 00:28:04.759
I mean that's to say the least. Okay, they were

524
00:28:04.759 --> 00:28:08.039
doing pretty bad. So by October of nineteen seventy four,

525
00:28:08.680 --> 00:28:12.400
his takeom salary was being spent before it was even earned,

526
00:28:12.680 --> 00:28:16.000
so it went to, you know, between rent and bills

527
00:28:16.079 --> 00:28:19.440
due and then feeding the family, they were flat out broke.

528
00:28:20.519 --> 00:28:24.039
He also owed nearly two thousand dollars on a delinquent

529
00:28:24.119 --> 00:28:27.160
loan that he had previously taken out, and then another

530
00:28:27.279 --> 00:28:30.680
eight hundred dollars in taxes and accruing fees that he

531
00:28:30.720 --> 00:28:34.759
owed to the government. So he knew his financial situation

532
00:28:34.920 --> 00:28:38.640
was dire, and he seemed to live in a constant

533
00:28:38.799 --> 00:28:42.920
state of being strapped with no extra income to offset

534
00:28:42.960 --> 00:28:44.079
these mounting bills.

535
00:28:44.640 --> 00:28:46.359
And one bill that he always knew he.

536
00:28:46.279 --> 00:28:48.480
Had coming was his one hundred and forty nine dollars

537
00:28:48.480 --> 00:28:53.359
a month car payment. Well, considering he had no money remaining,

538
00:28:54.119 --> 00:28:57.200
he was eight months behind on paying his car note.

539
00:28:58.000 --> 00:29:01.000
So the financing company at this point was not amused

540
00:29:01.279 --> 00:29:03.680
and had recently sent him a demand letter and they

541
00:29:03.720 --> 00:29:06.640
said either you pay now or were coming to repossess

542
00:29:06.720 --> 00:29:07.400
the car.

543
00:29:08.440 --> 00:29:10.359
Things had become dire.

544
00:29:10.519 --> 00:29:13.400
For Ronald and his family as far as finances went,

545
00:29:13.799 --> 00:29:17.000
so much so that he had even become vocal to

546
00:29:17.079 --> 00:29:20.640
anyone who would listen at his job that he needed money,

547
00:29:20.839 --> 00:29:24.440
even recently borrowing one hundred dollars from a coworker just

548
00:29:24.480 --> 00:29:27.480
to make ends meet for the month, and he eventually

549
00:29:27.519 --> 00:29:30.559
decided to take out a loan, as if that was

550
00:29:30.599 --> 00:29:33.400
going to help, you know somehow. I mean, he's virtually

551
00:29:33.480 --> 00:29:36.559
behind in every financial aspect of his life. So now

552
00:29:36.599 --> 00:29:38.519
he wanted to go take out another loan. That doesn't

553
00:29:38.519 --> 00:29:42.720
make any sense to me. Nonetheless, he applied with the

554
00:29:42.759 --> 00:29:45.480
Medical and Dental Service Bureau for a loan in the

555
00:29:45.519 --> 00:29:48.920
amount of one thousand, seven hundred and fifty dollars, and

556
00:29:48.960 --> 00:29:51.359
when they came back with the response, all it was

557
00:29:51.359 --> 00:29:53.880
was a frickin' hell, no, dude, you have no money,

558
00:29:54.359 --> 00:29:57.680
and they just sent back a denial letter because you're

559
00:29:57.720 --> 00:30:00.640
not doing too well here. So all in our now

560
00:30:00.720 --> 00:30:05.039
he realizes, I'm going bankrupt. But being poor doesn't make

561
00:30:05.079 --> 00:30:09.720
you a killer, and being poor doesn't explain where cyanide

562
00:30:10.640 --> 00:30:12.759
came from either. And while they didn't know where the

563
00:30:12.759 --> 00:30:17.359
cyanide came from and it hadn't yet been confirmed, it

564
00:30:17.400 --> 00:30:19.160
wouldn't take them long to.

565
00:30:19.240 --> 00:30:20.440
Figure it out.

566
00:30:20.640 --> 00:30:24.359
So Timothy's autopsy did confirm that his cause of death

567
00:30:24.680 --> 00:30:29.799
was cyanide poisoning. For a perspective, cyanide can refer to

568
00:30:30.000 --> 00:30:35.200
any chemical that contains a carbon nitrogen bond, and it's

569
00:30:35.279 --> 00:30:39.480
actually more common than you think naturally though, So for example,

570
00:30:39.480 --> 00:30:41.680
I did go to healthline dot com to get these answers.

571
00:30:41.720 --> 00:30:44.160
I'm not making this up or anything, but it's found

572
00:30:44.240 --> 00:30:48.759
in many safe to eat plant foods, including things like almonds,

573
00:30:48.839 --> 00:30:52.480
lima beans, soy, and spinach. And you can also find

574
00:30:52.559 --> 00:30:55.839
cyanide in medications, and some of them you might have

575
00:30:55.920 --> 00:30:59.519
even heard of before, like Selexa and if you remember tagament.

576
00:30:59.720 --> 00:31:02.960
But the difference here is that those are what are

577
00:31:02.960 --> 00:31:06.279
called nitrils, and they're not as toxic to the body

578
00:31:06.640 --> 00:31:10.720
because they don't easily release that carbon nitrogen ion, which

579
00:31:10.880 --> 00:31:14.039
then would act as a poison to the body. Syinide's

580
00:31:14.079 --> 00:31:18.480
even a byproduct of metabolism in the human body. It's

581
00:31:18.519 --> 00:31:21.680
even exhaled in low amounts every time that we breathe.

582
00:31:22.480 --> 00:31:26.279
This case, this wasn't the case though, in what was

583
00:31:26.319 --> 00:31:28.960
going on with Timothy. Those are all naturally occurring in

584
00:31:29.000 --> 00:31:32.279
like I said, small amounts and aren't toxic to the body.

585
00:31:32.279 --> 00:31:34.079
In the way that we usually consume those.

586
00:31:34.720 --> 00:31:39.440
This was twice the lethal dose of cyanide in this

587
00:31:39.559 --> 00:31:43.279
voice system, and this had to be an unnatural source

588
00:31:43.880 --> 00:31:46.640
that was ingested at the rate in which he was

589
00:31:46.680 --> 00:31:50.559
made sick and ultimately dead within an hour. The symptoms

590
00:31:50.559 --> 00:31:57.039
if you're curious of potassium cyanide, the poisoning initially would

591
00:31:57.039 --> 00:32:01.519
start out getting a really red complain because the tissues

592
00:32:01.680 --> 00:32:04.039
in the face and in the skin are not able

593
00:32:04.079 --> 00:32:07.519
to use the oxygen in the blood. So once little

594
00:32:07.519 --> 00:32:10.559
Tim's face would begun would have begun turning really, really red.

595
00:32:11.359 --> 00:32:14.039
He was actually already starting to die and he didn't

596
00:32:14.079 --> 00:32:18.559
know it. Within minutes of ingesting this poison, he would

597
00:32:18.599 --> 00:32:21.559
have felt really, really sick, and then he would have

598
00:32:21.720 --> 00:32:25.279
become weaker by the second just week week, week week,

599
00:32:25.599 --> 00:32:28.599
and then his little body would have started heaving vomit

600
00:32:28.960 --> 00:32:33.279
to try to expel that poison that was overtaking his organs,

601
00:32:33.880 --> 00:32:38.640
and then after that a massive migraine in his head

602
00:32:38.680 --> 00:32:41.599
would have ensued. So whenever he was saying Ronald was

603
00:32:41.599 --> 00:32:44.400
saying that the little boy didn't feel good, you're hearing

604
00:32:44.440 --> 00:32:49.119
it play out what was happening to him. Hypoxia begins,

605
00:32:49.440 --> 00:32:52.799
which meant Timothy would have become confused.

606
00:32:52.839 --> 00:32:55.240
He would have started having difficulty breathing.

607
00:32:55.279 --> 00:32:58.160
At that point, his heart rate would have sped up,

608
00:32:58.400 --> 00:33:01.440
and he would have begun to cough in this desperate

609
00:33:01.640 --> 00:33:06.640
grasp for air. He wouldn't have been getting enough oxygen.

610
00:33:06.880 --> 00:33:09.160
He would have been struggling to breathe. He would have

611
00:33:09.160 --> 00:33:14.960
started sweating profusely, then wheezing at best, and the pain

612
00:33:15.519 --> 00:33:19.680
and the sickness would have become overwhelming, and that's whenever

613
00:33:19.960 --> 00:33:23.279
he would have collapsed and started having those seizures. And

614
00:33:23.359 --> 00:33:26.960
I would argue only by the mercy of nature itself,

615
00:33:28.200 --> 00:33:32.039
that he would eventually lose consciousness before his organs gave

616
00:33:32.079 --> 00:33:36.160
out and then he had brain death. So while it

617
00:33:36.200 --> 00:33:39.920
doesn't sound like it was a long period before he

618
00:33:40.000 --> 00:33:45.200
was dead, this child suffered greatly until he lost consciousness.

619
00:33:45.480 --> 00:33:48.079
And there is no doubt that this was done to

620
00:33:48.119 --> 00:33:52.200
this baby on purpose. Someone did this to this child,

621
00:33:52.920 --> 00:33:56.559
and just like me and you listening to this right now,

622
00:33:56.759 --> 00:34:00.880
police wanted answers, and they wanted him now. This is

623
00:34:00.920 --> 00:34:03.440
not acceptable and there has to be an explanation for

624
00:34:03.480 --> 00:34:07.279
what's going on. So police had been at the O'Brien

625
00:34:07.319 --> 00:34:11.199
home after Timothy died, and while there they had recovered

626
00:34:11.199 --> 00:34:14.519
those pixie sticks that Ronald kept mentioning, because that was

627
00:34:14.519 --> 00:34:18.960
what Timothy had last eaten before he became violently ill. Interestingly,

628
00:34:19.880 --> 00:34:23.400
potassium cyanide looks like sugar if you look at it,

629
00:34:24.000 --> 00:34:27.480
and it would have blended really well into the sugar

630
00:34:28.119 --> 00:34:31.280
of the pixie stick if it were put in there.

631
00:34:32.239 --> 00:34:34.760
So the sticks were taken and they were sent to

632
00:34:34.800 --> 00:34:39.800
a lab for testing. Before even testing its contents. It

633
00:34:39.880 --> 00:34:44.679
was noticed though by the technician that one end of

634
00:34:45.079 --> 00:34:48.079
the pixie sticks were heat sealed like from the factory,

635
00:34:48.400 --> 00:34:51.320
but on all of the other pixie sticks the other

636
00:34:51.519 --> 00:34:56.440
end was simply sealed with a staple. So curious if

637
00:34:56.440 --> 00:34:58.920
this was the standard sealing method of the candy, because

638
00:34:58.960 --> 00:35:02.239
remember this is the nineteen seve seventies. The production company

639
00:35:02.880 --> 00:35:05.519
of the candy was contacted police wanted to know, hey,

640
00:35:05.519 --> 00:35:09.519
how do you normally sealed this candy and the company said,

641
00:35:10.639 --> 00:35:12.559
one hundred percent of the time. When we send this

642
00:35:12.559 --> 00:35:15.400
to production and it sent out to the businesses, both

643
00:35:15.599 --> 00:35:18.920
ends of the pixie sticks are heat sealed. We never

644
00:35:19.039 --> 00:35:22.320
used staple. We never would use a staple. It would

645
00:35:22.320 --> 00:35:22.840
spill out.

646
00:35:22.760 --> 00:35:23.559
I mean, think about it.

647
00:35:23.960 --> 00:35:26.719
So this is again more proof that this candy had

648
00:35:26.760 --> 00:35:29.679
been messed with at some point, and the stick that

649
00:35:29.760 --> 00:35:33.480
Tim had eaten out of was missing the first four

650
00:35:33.519 --> 00:35:38.320
inches of candy. It was tested by the lab and

651
00:35:38.440 --> 00:35:43.880
interestingly enough, it came back negative for cyanide. So the

652
00:35:44.079 --> 00:35:48.079
other remaining candy sticks were also tested and guess what,

653
00:35:48.880 --> 00:35:53.280
they all were found to have lethal doses in the

654
00:35:53.320 --> 00:35:58.840
first two inches of the candy in them. Tim's, of course,

655
00:35:59.239 --> 00:36:02.719
was already gone because he had eaten it. So using

656
00:36:02.719 --> 00:36:06.840
our brains and deductive reasoning here we can see that

657
00:36:06.880 --> 00:36:12.199
potentially all of the O'Brien children should be dead, both

658
00:36:12.239 --> 00:36:16.000
of them, if not the mother if she would have

659
00:36:16.039 --> 00:36:18.599
eaten it, or the father if he would have eaten it.

660
00:36:19.440 --> 00:36:22.599
But Timothy was, unfortunately the only one that chose the

661
00:36:22.639 --> 00:36:28.000
pixie stick. So how Tim died was now known contaminated

662
00:36:28.000 --> 00:36:32.159
candy laced with cyanide, But how it got there was wanting.

663
00:36:32.800 --> 00:36:34.960
We want to answer that, but not only how, but

664
00:36:34.960 --> 00:36:39.119
more importantly why would someone do this? Well? Another interesting

665
00:36:39.159 --> 00:36:43.119
fact about Tim's death was that the very next day

666
00:36:44.000 --> 00:36:48.400
he hadn't been dead twenty four hours. Ronald went to

667
00:36:48.480 --> 00:36:52.519
go to the funeral home to plan Timothy's funeral. That's

668
00:36:52.599 --> 00:36:59.480
not not normal. But during that conversation, Ronald was told

669
00:36:59.480 --> 00:37:02.840
by the funeral director to make sure he knew that.

670
00:37:03.119 --> 00:37:05.639
First of all, is there insurance on your son? And

671
00:37:05.760 --> 00:37:08.679
Ronald said, yes, we have life insurance on him. And

672
00:37:08.719 --> 00:37:11.679
he said, well, listen, the way that this works is

673
00:37:11.719 --> 00:37:16.119
that you have to have an original death certificate for

674
00:37:16.519 --> 00:37:17.599
the life policy.

675
00:37:17.639 --> 00:37:18.360
On your child.

676
00:37:18.719 --> 00:37:20.760
Don't make any photo copies and mail that in. Make

677
00:37:20.800 --> 00:37:23.840
sure you send the original one in. And that's when

678
00:37:23.960 --> 00:37:29.239
Ronald said, oh, okay, I need to order not one,

679
00:37:29.800 --> 00:37:36.440
not two, not three, not four, not five, but six

680
00:37:38.199 --> 00:37:41.639
six death certificate copies.

681
00:37:42.760 --> 00:37:45.840
Six. So it's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa whoa?

682
00:37:45.880 --> 00:37:50.320
Wait? What what is going on here? And is what's

683
00:37:50.360 --> 00:37:52.440
going on? What it seems like, why would you need

684
00:37:52.519 --> 00:37:55.599
six copies? Did you have six policies on your son?

685
00:37:57.639 --> 00:38:01.480
So this had police attention and looking into why he

686
00:38:01.480 --> 00:38:05.679
would need so many of these copies. Here are some

687
00:38:05.800 --> 00:38:10.239
facts that police found. In January of nineteen seventy four,

688
00:38:10.880 --> 00:38:14.239
Ronald joined the what was called the New Outlooks Club

689
00:38:14.719 --> 00:38:19.760
at the Pasadena State Bank. So by joining that bank,

690
00:38:20.639 --> 00:38:23.159
there was the club they offered, and if you were

691
00:38:23.199 --> 00:38:26.639
a part of that club, you would qualify for a

692
00:38:26.679 --> 00:38:30.239
small life insurance policy, which the only way that you

693
00:38:30.360 --> 00:38:33.480
earned that policy was that you had to make X

694
00:38:33.480 --> 00:38:36.039
amount of withdrawals. They were just like a couple of

695
00:38:36.079 --> 00:38:39.800
dollars each but X amount of withdraws a couple of

696
00:38:39.840 --> 00:38:42.519
times each month. And that was kind of their gimmick,

697
00:38:42.760 --> 00:38:44.679
you know, like to make sure you're using the account

698
00:38:44.719 --> 00:38:47.280
and all of that. You sign up join this club,

699
00:38:47.440 --> 00:38:50.119
make sure you make three or four, you know, withdrawals

700
00:38:50.119 --> 00:38:52.559
a month, and then you get to be qualified and

701
00:38:52.599 --> 00:38:56.360
you get to get life insurance. So Ronald had had

702
00:38:56.800 --> 00:39:00.440
every member of his family sign that signal your card

703
00:39:00.480 --> 00:39:05.119
at the bank, so that everyone in his family or

704
00:39:05.159 --> 00:39:09.079
everyone that signed would have gotten ten thousand dollars in coverage.

705
00:39:10.360 --> 00:39:14.559
When his wife found out about this and what was

706
00:39:14.599 --> 00:39:19.159
going on, she thought it was absolutely ridiculous and she

707
00:39:19.360 --> 00:39:22.480
raised hell. She was like, dude, we're broker than broke.

708
00:39:22.599 --> 00:39:24.599
We can't even afford to pay attention. Dude, Like we

709
00:39:24.679 --> 00:39:29.360
are that poor, and this is wasting precious dollars that

710
00:39:29.400 --> 00:39:32.599
we need to live, Like we have to buy groceries

711
00:39:32.679 --> 00:39:33.320
for our kids.

712
00:39:33.320 --> 00:39:35.760
Why are we buying life insurance policies for our children?

713
00:39:35.800 --> 00:39:36.400
Their kids?

714
00:39:37.320 --> 00:39:42.360
Plus, I mean they're so young. It just seems unnecessary

715
00:39:42.800 --> 00:39:45.039
and we're so strapped. It's not something we need to

716
00:39:45.039 --> 00:39:45.519
be doing.

717
00:39:46.840 --> 00:39:48.039
She thought it was stupid.

718
00:39:49.679 --> 00:39:53.119
So he was the leader of the house though, so whatever,

719
00:39:53.239 --> 00:39:55.440
they just they signed the card. But she still was adamant,

720
00:39:55.480 --> 00:39:56.800
this is the dumbest shit I've ever heard of in

721
00:39:56.840 --> 00:40:00.239
my life. It was also discovered by police that the

722
00:40:00.320 --> 00:40:03.679
end of September, Ronald went and spoke to a life

723
00:40:03.760 --> 00:40:08.320
insurance agent about covering his family. This was in addition

724
00:40:08.840 --> 00:40:13.280
to the bank and the agent, the guy who was

725
00:40:13.360 --> 00:40:17.480
literally in sales to make money by selling life insurance,

726
00:40:18.199 --> 00:40:20.800
said dude, I don't think this is necessary on all

727
00:40:20.840 --> 00:40:25.039
your children. But Ronald ignored his advice and he took

728
00:40:25.079 --> 00:40:29.519
out twenty thousand dollars policies on each of his children.

729
00:40:30.400 --> 00:40:33.239
So when the police asked the wife about this, she

730
00:40:33.440 --> 00:40:36.920
had no idea what they were talking about. She's like, wait, what,

731
00:40:37.199 --> 00:40:39.599
there's policies on my children outside of the bank.

732
00:40:40.360 --> 00:40:40.679
Yep.

733
00:40:41.960 --> 00:40:44.800
Something that was also interesting to police was that Ronald

734
00:40:45.280 --> 00:40:49.880
never took coverage out on himself, you know, the parent,

735
00:40:50.400 --> 00:40:56.800
the older one, the one more likely to die.

736
00:40:55.280 --> 00:40:56.559
Only as kids.

737
00:40:57.360 --> 00:40:59.840
So, running on the theory that he may have been

738
00:40:59.880 --> 00:41:03.840
involved in his son's death for financial gain, police wanted

739
00:41:03.880 --> 00:41:06.119
to figure out, now, okay, well where did the cyanide

740
00:41:06.199 --> 00:41:08.320
come from? Though, because this is kind of maybe he's

741
00:41:08.360 --> 00:41:10.800
a weirdo. Maybe he just got all the life insurance

742
00:41:10.840 --> 00:41:13.119
policies because he got nervous and you know, about some

743
00:41:13.199 --> 00:41:16.159
things that had happened in his life. It was soon

744
00:41:16.239 --> 00:41:19.639
after realized that a few months earlier in August, remember

745
00:41:19.639 --> 00:41:24.519
Timothy dies at Halloween in October. In August, Ronald asked

746
00:41:24.519 --> 00:41:30.000
his manager at work to order cyanide. But there is

747
00:41:30.039 --> 00:41:33.840
a legitimate purpose for this. It's used in cleaning glass frames,

748
00:41:33.920 --> 00:41:38.840
eyeglass frames. But this caught the manager's attention because cyanide

749
00:41:40.199 --> 00:41:43.519
was used in the optical business. But that was a

750
00:41:43.519 --> 00:41:46.599
practice that had been outdated, so it seemed like an

751
00:41:46.639 --> 00:41:50.800
odd request. And I did some further research on this

752
00:41:50.800 --> 00:41:52.800
because I wanted to understand it. I'm sure you might

753
00:41:52.840 --> 00:41:56.239
want to know. And I found that cyanide actually is

754
00:41:56.280 --> 00:41:59.599
still used today in jewelry cleaning, so it's not that

755
00:41:59.760 --> 00:42:03.199
far off the rails. And basically they take the cyanide

756
00:42:03.239 --> 00:42:07.159
and they do what's called bombing, and the process makes

757
00:42:07.239 --> 00:42:09.639
there's a chemical reaction they do and the process removes

758
00:42:09.679 --> 00:42:12.440
the top layer of gold and it leaves a clean,

759
00:42:12.679 --> 00:42:15.679
pure layer underneath. So it makes old jewelry look new,

760
00:42:15.760 --> 00:42:17.679
and it's just like a nice way of updating and

761
00:42:17.679 --> 00:42:22.199
making your jewelry look nice, but for eyeglasses, not so much.

762
00:42:22.440 --> 00:42:26.760
Even in the seventies, this was an outdated practice. Specifically

763
00:42:26.800 --> 00:42:29.400
just for your knowledge too. It was outdated by twenty years,

764
00:42:29.760 --> 00:42:31.800
so no wonder. The manager was like, wait, what, why

765
00:42:31.800 --> 00:42:35.119
do you want cyanide. The manager was so weirded out

766
00:42:35.119 --> 00:42:37.840
by it that he declined and said, no, but I'm

767
00:42:37.880 --> 00:42:41.960
not ordering that. But three weeks later Ronald asked him again, dude,

768
00:42:42.000 --> 00:42:43.320
I need the sinanide. I got to I got to

769
00:42:43.400 --> 00:42:45.800
work on these glasses for a customer. And this time

770
00:42:45.800 --> 00:42:48.199
the manager said, look, dude, if you want that, you're

771
00:42:48.199 --> 00:42:50.280
gonna have to go up the chain to someone with

772
00:42:49.920 --> 00:42:52.679
more with a more senior position, and make let them

773
00:42:52.679 --> 00:42:54.880
make that decision to order it. But I'm not ordering it.

774
00:42:55.079 --> 00:42:56.920
I don't think that that's something we need to do.

775
00:42:58.000 --> 00:43:01.400
In talking with people that Ronald was free with about

776
00:43:01.639 --> 00:43:04.320
his behaviors and his activities. In the last few months

777
00:43:04.400 --> 00:43:08.960
leading up to Timothy's death, it was discovered that Ronald

778
00:43:08.960 --> 00:43:10.719
had called another friend of his by the name of

779
00:43:10.760 --> 00:43:14.920
Bobby Terry. This would be important because Bobby Terry was

780
00:43:14.960 --> 00:43:17.320
not only a friend of Ronald's, but he was a

781
00:43:17.360 --> 00:43:21.280
former coworker. Where he was a former co worker might

782
00:43:21.320 --> 00:43:24.400
be of interest to you. He was a former coworker

783
00:43:24.480 --> 00:43:30.719
at Arco Chemical Company, So in speaking to Bobby Terry,

784
00:43:31.800 --> 00:43:34.280
he says that Ronald called him just on one of

785
00:43:34.320 --> 00:43:37.280
their regular conversations, and Ronald had told him about the

786
00:43:37.320 --> 00:43:40.199
fact that he was enrolled at San Jacento College and

787
00:43:40.280 --> 00:43:42.599
was in the middle of taking a chemistry course there.

788
00:43:43.360 --> 00:43:47.320
And Ronald was kind of unimpressed with his instructor there

789
00:43:47.599 --> 00:43:50.840
because he was convinced that his instructor had no idea

790
00:43:50.880 --> 00:43:53.039
what he was talking about, and that he had no

791
00:43:53.119 --> 00:43:57.280
idea how many forms of cyanide there actually were, because remember,

792
00:43:57.400 --> 00:43:59.559
he knew about the sinide that you used to clean

793
00:43:59.639 --> 00:44:01.960
eye gold glasses. So the two of them talked about

794
00:44:01.960 --> 00:44:05.679
the many varieties of syinide and basically how would you

795
00:44:05.760 --> 00:44:11.760
get those? Where would they come from? Terry told Ronald, Yeah,

796
00:44:11.760 --> 00:44:15.559
well that Matheson Scientific Company was known to carry it.

797
00:44:15.719 --> 00:44:18.400
If the instructor's interested in getting some for the course,

798
00:44:18.480 --> 00:44:20.719
he could go down there and get it. So the

799
00:44:20.800 --> 00:44:25.079
discussion continued, and Ronald was just curious, I wonder how

800
00:44:25.159 --> 00:44:26.960
much of that would be fatal. You know, they're going

801
00:44:27.039 --> 00:44:29.320
to be using it in a classroom. I wonder how

802
00:44:29.360 --> 00:44:31.719
much of that would be fatal in a human, you know,

803
00:44:31.840 --> 00:44:36.199
And so they kind of discussed that conversation over another question,

804
00:44:37.360 --> 00:44:40.559
and I know it was kind of strange, but Ronald

805
00:44:40.639 --> 00:44:43.960
was just curious if they'd be able to detect sinide

806
00:44:44.320 --> 00:44:48.199
in a dead body, you know, normal conversations that we

807
00:44:48.239 --> 00:44:54.920
all have. Other employees at Ronald's current workplace also confirmed

808
00:44:55.239 --> 00:44:57.800
that he had discussed the use of cyanide with them

809
00:44:58.480 --> 00:45:01.840
and how it may be fatal. So I don't know

810
00:45:01.880 --> 00:45:05.119
about you, but I believe that where there's smoke, there's fire.

811
00:45:05.960 --> 00:45:08.079
And I'm not trying to call us firemen, but maybe

812
00:45:08.119 --> 00:45:13.440
we may have just located it. So police kind of

813
00:45:13.480 --> 00:45:16.480
start snooping around to see if they may have located

814
00:45:16.519 --> 00:45:21.960
that cyanide, and it's exactly what the police would find.

815
00:45:22.679 --> 00:45:26.079
Matter of fact, they found that Ronald went to a

816
00:45:26.159 --> 00:45:30.239
chemical outlet in Houston. It was called Curtin Matheson Scientific

817
00:45:31.119 --> 00:45:34.440
and the salesperson there his name was David Jackson, and

818
00:45:34.519 --> 00:45:36.639
he remembered Ronald because he was the one who had

819
00:45:36.679 --> 00:45:37.599
assisted him when.

820
00:45:37.440 --> 00:45:42.119
He came in. When they were talking and doing, you know,

821
00:45:42.199 --> 00:45:43.960
the purchase or attempted purchase.

822
00:45:44.639 --> 00:45:47.039
He was very specific when he was talking to the

823
00:45:47.039 --> 00:45:49.559
salesman that he didn't need a lot of it. So

824
00:45:49.719 --> 00:45:52.800
what is the smallest amount that he could purchase, and

825
00:45:52.840 --> 00:45:55.840
so David advised him that, oh, yeah, you can get

826
00:45:55.840 --> 00:45:57.920
in small amounts. We have a five pound bucket that

827
00:45:57.960 --> 00:45:58.360
you can.

828
00:45:58.239 --> 00:45:58.639
Buy it in.

829
00:45:59.280 --> 00:46:01.920
And Ronald's offed at that five pounds. I don't need

830
00:46:01.960 --> 00:46:04.840
five pounds of it. So David said, oh, well, if

831
00:46:04.840 --> 00:46:06.599
you need less, you know, you don't need a bunch.

832
00:46:07.320 --> 00:46:10.199
He said, well, there's other places that you can locate

833
00:46:10.440 --> 00:46:13.159
and get small amounts of cyanide. And so they went

834
00:46:13.199 --> 00:46:14.960
through that list of where you can find them, and

835
00:46:15.000 --> 00:46:16.960
so Ronald said, hey, man, I really appreciate it, thank

836
00:46:16.960 --> 00:46:20.159
you so much, and he left without buying any Well,

837
00:46:20.199 --> 00:46:24.679
wouldn't you know. On October twenty third, just two days

838
00:46:25.320 --> 00:46:29.519
before Young Timothy died, Ronald went to the medical branch

839
00:46:29.599 --> 00:46:34.880
Credit Union and he discussed with them his upcoming expected

840
00:46:34.920 --> 00:46:39.559
financial changes in the near future, which included a large

841
00:46:39.599 --> 00:46:43.440
sum of cash. He was expecting before the end of

842
00:46:43.480 --> 00:46:47.840
the year, you know, probably between October thirty first and

843
00:46:47.880 --> 00:46:50.960
December thirty first, I'm guessing that's what he's talking about.

844
00:46:51.599 --> 00:46:55.199
And he was so confident, so confident that he would

845
00:46:55.199 --> 00:46:57.679
be coming into a lump sum of money that he

846
00:46:57.719 --> 00:47:01.159
even signed paperwork with the bank to add his late

847
00:47:01.199 --> 00:47:04.800
payments to his note that he would pay in January

848
00:47:05.199 --> 00:47:08.840
of nineteen seventy five. Okay, so he really felt like

849
00:47:08.880 --> 00:47:11.840
he was going to get this money. So when questioned

850
00:47:11.840 --> 00:47:14.119
about this, the police were like wanting to know what

851
00:47:14.159 --> 00:47:17.519
Deneen thought about it. Deneen was asked, what is this

852
00:47:17.639 --> 00:47:20.159
lumps up of money, this lump sum of money that

853
00:47:20.199 --> 00:47:23.599
y'are going to be expecting by January? And she again

854
00:47:23.679 --> 00:47:26.360
is deer in the headlights. We're not expecting any money.

855
00:47:26.519 --> 00:47:29.199
We're flat ass broke. We don't have any money and

856
00:47:29.239 --> 00:47:30.400
we don't have any coming in.

857
00:47:31.000 --> 00:47:31.760
That's crazy.

858
00:47:33.280 --> 00:47:38.679
Then almost immediately after Timothy's death, Jimmy Bates, remember his friend.

859
00:47:39.679 --> 00:47:43.880
He told police that Ronald had called him about possibly

860
00:47:43.920 --> 00:47:48.280
purchasing a home, but he made Jimmy promise that he

861
00:47:48.280 --> 00:47:51.760
would not mention anything about this home purchase to his

862
00:47:51.800 --> 00:47:55.880
wife Denen. What is going on that Ronald would be

863
00:47:55.960 --> 00:47:58.880
making all these moves in life and Deneen not be

864
00:47:58.960 --> 00:48:02.840
aware of it. They were so broke that they couldn't

865
00:48:02.840 --> 00:48:05.559
even afford their rent. But now he's gonna somehow purchase

866
00:48:05.599 --> 00:48:10.360
a house. How well, I'm glad you, asked because Ronald

867
00:48:10.760 --> 00:48:13.679
was also extremely happy to talk about his plans to

868
00:48:13.679 --> 00:48:17.559
spend Timothy's life insurance money, and he liked to explain

869
00:48:17.639 --> 00:48:22.159
that with his friend. So this was shocking to Jimmy,

870
00:48:22.480 --> 00:48:25.599
who thought of his own kids in that moment, and

871
00:48:25.639 --> 00:48:29.079
he's thinking to himself, I would be devastated right now

872
00:48:29.119 --> 00:48:33.159
if my child was dead and he's sitting here talking

873
00:48:33.159 --> 00:48:36.840
about how he's gonna spend the life insurance money and

874
00:48:36.920 --> 00:48:40.119
the way that he was excited about it, and Ronald's

875
00:48:40.159 --> 00:48:42.880
grand plans for the money. It just really caught his

876
00:48:42.880 --> 00:48:46.440
friend Jimmy off guard, and it kind of was off

877
00:48:46.480 --> 00:48:50.440
putting to Jimmy. And it became very clear in that

878
00:48:50.519 --> 00:48:56.679
moment that although Ronald appeared grief stricken in public, in private,

879
00:48:57.119 --> 00:48:59.840
he didn't show any signs of distress. It was almost

880
00:48:59.880 --> 00:49:03.440
just it's like business as usual. And then Ronald said

881
00:49:03.480 --> 00:49:06.880
something to Jimmy that sealed the deal in his mind.

882
00:49:07.960 --> 00:49:11.079
He said that while they were talking, you know, I

883
00:49:11.159 --> 00:49:13.599
just don't see how the police could pin Timothy's death

884
00:49:13.639 --> 00:49:21.280
on anybody. Listen, that statement wouldn't come out of my

885
00:49:21.400 --> 00:49:24.760
mouth if I had gotten candy that I believed killed

886
00:49:24.760 --> 00:49:27.800
my child during Halloween I'd kick down every damn door

887
00:49:27.880 --> 00:49:31.719
on the two streets. I would be skull dragging people

888
00:49:32.000 --> 00:49:34.920
for answers. And I mean that, but hashtag don't listen

889
00:49:34.960 --> 00:49:38.840
to me, because, like hashtag, that's bad advice. I'm just saying, hypothetically,

890
00:49:39.519 --> 00:49:42.000
be careful what you hand out, because this mama would go,

891
00:49:42.360 --> 00:49:44.760
I'm gonna find out who did this to my baby,

892
00:49:44.800 --> 00:49:47.559
and you damn right, someone's gonna pay for it. I'm

893
00:49:47.599 --> 00:49:49.039
not gonna be talking to my friends about well. I

894
00:49:49.079 --> 00:49:51.360
just don't see how anybody could be held responsible. That's

895
00:49:51.519 --> 00:49:56.119
asinine to say that. Another person came forward, a customer

896
00:49:56.440 --> 00:50:01.280
at the eyeglass company where Ronald work. He came forward

897
00:50:01.320 --> 00:50:05.280
and said, you know, the day of Halloween, before trick

898
00:50:05.320 --> 00:50:07.639
or treating would have happened, but the day of Halloween,

899
00:50:08.119 --> 00:50:11.239
the customer had gotten there, and he had gotten there

900
00:50:11.239 --> 00:50:14.079
about the same time Ronald was moving from his car

901
00:50:14.119 --> 00:50:17.159
into the business, and he recalled seeing Ronald in the

902
00:50:17.199 --> 00:50:20.920
parking lot and he was carrying a stapler and a

903
00:50:21.039 --> 00:50:23.559
bag of stuff that he couldn't the customer couldn't tell

904
00:50:23.559 --> 00:50:25.639
what was in it, but he definitely saw the stapler.

905
00:50:26.760 --> 00:50:29.280
And then when the customer got inside and was having

906
00:50:29.360 --> 00:50:32.320
his eyeglasses serviced. He and Ronald were having some back

907
00:50:32.320 --> 00:50:36.119
and forth discussion and guess what they were talking about.

908
00:50:37.159 --> 00:50:41.920
Ronald brought up cyanide again, and they were talking about

909
00:50:42.239 --> 00:50:46.280
what would be lethal doses of cyanide. What are the chances,

910
00:50:47.000 --> 00:50:49.920
what are the chances of that happening. In a follow

911
00:50:50.000 --> 00:50:53.719
up search of Ronald's home, police discovered a pair of

912
00:50:53.760 --> 00:50:58.239
scissors and a knife, which they collected for forensic testing.

913
00:50:58.280 --> 00:51:00.119
When I say forensic testing at least, I mean was

914
00:51:00.119 --> 00:51:03.760
available in the Times in the nineteen seventies, and under examination,

915
00:51:04.320 --> 00:51:07.880
it was found that the scissor blades had a lavender

916
00:51:08.280 --> 00:51:12.199
plastic substance on them. You know pixie sticks, the big

917
00:51:12.199 --> 00:51:14.119
plastic ones. You know they have the stripes on them.

918
00:51:14.280 --> 00:51:17.800
Can't you see where I'm where I'm going here? The

919
00:51:17.880 --> 00:51:21.719
knife blade also had that plastic on it as well,

920
00:51:22.800 --> 00:51:28.760
and also had these crystal particles that were water soluble

921
00:51:29.239 --> 00:51:31.239
and contained sugar, i e.

922
00:51:31.639 --> 00:51:32.719
Pixie stick dust.

923
00:51:33.760 --> 00:51:35.719
So it kind of makes sense to me he probably

924
00:51:36.360 --> 00:51:41.480
cut those open then used the knife to he poured

925
00:51:41.519 --> 00:51:43.760
some out, use the knife to go back in the

926
00:51:43.800 --> 00:51:45.840
hole right with a real skinny blade to kind of

927
00:51:46.079 --> 00:51:47.519
put it back in and then.

928
00:51:47.440 --> 00:51:50.039
Put more sugar on top. That's what I envision it being.

929
00:51:51.119 --> 00:51:53.639
And as sick as it is to think about it,

930
00:51:53.639 --> 00:51:58.519
it was coming very clear to police as well. Ronald

931
00:51:59.079 --> 00:52:04.400
had carefully crafted a plan to kill his children for

932
00:52:04.480 --> 00:52:08.760
the life insurance money. He had purchased life insurance on

933
00:52:08.800 --> 00:52:13.079
his children, but not himself. He talked to everyone he

934
00:52:13.159 --> 00:52:16.480
knew about acquiring cyanide and how much it would take

935
00:52:16.480 --> 00:52:18.719
to kill a person. In the months leading up to

936
00:52:18.800 --> 00:52:23.960
his baby boy's death, he purchased the candy and the cyanide.

937
00:52:24.400 --> 00:52:27.519
He carefully cut the packaging of the candy open with

938
00:52:27.599 --> 00:52:30.800
his scissors at the house where nobody could see him.

939
00:52:31.079 --> 00:52:34.239
He poured the cyanide in and then he topped it

940
00:52:34.280 --> 00:52:38.440
off with sugar, and then he stapled it. Remember he

941
00:52:38.519 --> 00:52:42.400
had to bring the supplies back to work. He then

942
00:52:42.880 --> 00:52:47.320
went and bought costumes, remember that whole thing, right before Halloween,

943
00:52:47.679 --> 00:52:50.440
to excite the kids, and then he brought him out

944
00:52:50.480 --> 00:52:54.559
for a night of fun, planning to kill his children

945
00:52:54.880 --> 00:52:59.119
the entire time. All of his kids, remember, every pixie

946
00:52:59.119 --> 00:53:03.440
stick had that sign in it. Only poor Timothy had

947
00:53:03.519 --> 00:53:06.960
eaten his giant pixie stick, even though the other kids

948
00:53:07.000 --> 00:53:10.920
had them, and they were laced with cyanide, awaiting to

949
00:53:11.079 --> 00:53:13.480
kill them. They just didn't open.

950
00:53:13.280 --> 00:53:14.119
The pixie sticks.

951
00:53:15.400 --> 00:53:19.960
How could a father come home and hug his kids,

952
00:53:20.800 --> 00:53:23.960
trick or treat with them, and smile in their faces,

953
00:53:24.239 --> 00:53:28.519
knowing the entire time that he was planning to kill them.

954
00:53:29.400 --> 00:53:33.239
That is a level of calculated evil that I don't understand,

955
00:53:33.239 --> 00:53:37.480
and I pray to God anyone listening doesn't either. Ronald

956
00:53:37.599 --> 00:53:40.880
was ultimately arrested and he stood trial, and I want

957
00:53:40.920 --> 00:53:43.320
you to know he did testify on his own behalf,

958
00:53:43.679 --> 00:53:46.559
but it didn't help, and he was sentenced to death

959
00:53:46.840 --> 00:53:50.400
for the murder of his own son. And by the way,

960
00:53:50.679 --> 00:53:53.320
are you curious what his son's death was worth to

961
00:53:53.400 --> 00:53:55.199
him in total, because I don't know if you were

962
00:53:55.199 --> 00:54:00.400
doing any math earlier. Thirty one thousand dollars twenty one

963
00:54:00.440 --> 00:54:05.199
thousand dollars for his baby boy's life, his flesh and blood. Now,

964
00:54:05.239 --> 00:54:08.880
of course, it's never that easy when we tell these stories,

965
00:54:09.320 --> 00:54:11.239
because do you know that that son of a bitch

966
00:54:11.360 --> 00:54:16.400
would go on to win three stays of execution three

967
00:54:16.440 --> 00:54:20.679
three times his life was spared, and one had him

968
00:54:20.679 --> 00:54:24.000
scheduled to die on none other than Halloween.

969
00:54:23.480 --> 00:54:28.800
In nineteen eighty two. That would have been just poetic justice.

970
00:54:29.440 --> 00:54:32.800
This would have been exactly eight years to the day

971
00:54:33.400 --> 00:54:39.760
that tim died. But again he won another stay of execution. Eventually, though,

972
00:54:39.800 --> 00:54:42.880
the odds were against him and he would be executed

973
00:54:43.039 --> 00:54:45.840
at the age of thirty nine at twelve forty eight

974
00:54:45.880 --> 00:54:51.320
am on March thirty first, nineteen eighty four. So good

975
00:54:51.440 --> 00:54:55.280
rittance to that piece of shit. But I do hope

976
00:54:55.320 --> 00:54:59.119
that you, however, go on to have some fun this Halloween.

977
00:54:59.400 --> 00:55:02.320
I hope you and joy the kiddos, and that y'all

978
00:55:02.360 --> 00:55:04.280
have fun going door to door and the kids come

979
00:55:04.320 --> 00:55:06.119
in to your door shout and trick or treat. I

980
00:55:06.159 --> 00:55:09.119
hope that all of us parents are gonna hug our

981
00:55:09.159 --> 00:55:11.360
babies tight. I hope that we're going to soak up

982
00:55:11.400 --> 00:55:14.519
their childhood and we're going to enjoy this dress up

983
00:55:14.519 --> 00:55:16.519
and this fun. And I hope that we'll all do

984
00:55:16.599 --> 00:55:18.880
it in the name of little Timothy, and we'll remember

985
00:55:18.920 --> 00:55:22.599
that he was real. Little Timmy set out for a

986
00:55:22.679 --> 00:55:27.000
night of dinner with friends and some treats, but he

987
00:55:27.079 --> 00:55:30.239
ultimately got tricked, y'all by the very man that he

988
00:55:30.320 --> 00:55:33.719
looked up to and he loved the most he was

989
00:55:33.760 --> 00:55:38.519
served a deadly poison in hopes of financial gain. It

990
00:55:38.559 --> 00:55:42.000
does not get any sicker than that. But I want

991
00:55:42.039 --> 00:55:44.599
y'all to know that Ronald got himself.

992
00:55:44.239 --> 00:55:45.079
A little treat too.

993
00:55:45.440 --> 00:55:48.079
And it was right there in execution cafe, where there

994
00:55:48.079 --> 00:55:50.440
aren't any menus, because all they serve there is what

995
00:55:50.519 --> 00:55:51.039
you deserve.