Halloween Hell

Trick or treat? How about kill and maim? Meet six psychos who took their pranks way beyond egging houses.

SO REALLY - WHAT'S THE WORST THING YOU'VE DONE ON HALLOWEEN? THREW SOME EGGS AT PASSING CARS? WRAPPED TOILET PAPER AROUND SOME TELEPHONE POLES? PISSED ON A FEW STOREFRONTS?

According to crime stats, the three days that comprise Halloween, from mischief night to the day after Halloween, are fraught with minor criminal infractions. Every year, police report a spike in public intoxication, open alcohol containers and urinating in public, along with the obvious onslaught of petty vandalism. A new offense to add to the list of late is missing persons. (Maybe they're just wearing some seriously mystifying costumes.)

But what the police don't want to mention is all the other, more serious crimes that spike during the spook season, like murder and rape. Hey, let's face it; Halloween already has a bad name, and with all the scary-movie remakes, who wants to hear about the real deal? But in celebration of this hallowed eve, Men's Edge went beyond the adventures of Michael Myers and found some true sickos who couldn't seem to get through Oct. 31 without killing someone - for real.

THE CANDY MAN

On Halloween 1974, Ronald Clark O'Bryan didn't think the candy he was about to give his 8-year-old son, Timothy, met with Halloween standards. So he decided to throw in a little cyanide. A suburban Houston optician, O'Bryan clipped off one end of five Giant Pixy Stix, poured in the poison and stapled them back together. In all, O'Bryan had put enough cyanide in the sugary treats to kill two or three grown men. Naturally, his son kicked off after complaining of stomach pains. O'Bryan also gave the tainted goodies to four other kids, but, fortunately, they didn't ingest the contents. It was discovered later that O'Bryan was after a $20,000 life insurance policy that was coming to him if his son died.

O'Bryan never admitted to killing his son. He testified at his trial that he let Timothy eat the Pixy Stix before bedtime, giving him Kool-Aid when the boy said the candy tasted bitter. Do 8-year-olds use the word "bitter"?

O'Bryan was dubbed "The Candy Man" by his death-row mates before he was executed March 31, 1984. He made no mention of his son in a final statement, but he did have something nice to say for the rest of us: "To anyone I have offended in any way during my 39 years, I pray and ask your forgiveness, just as I forgive anyone who offended me in any way."

THE HALLOWEEN KILLER

Mild-mannered Gerald Turner Jr. sure hates people knocking on his door. Either that, or he really hates Halloween trick-ortreaters. In any case, on Halloween 1973, Turner, then a Milwaukee resident, was at home when someone knocked at the door. That someone was 9-year-old Lisa Ann French. Not missing a beat, Turner raped and strangled her. He also helped to make her disappear. Later, when he was in prison, he refused sex-offender treatment. He was soon after nicknamed "The Halloween Killer." Oddly, Turner eventually was released on good behavior and landed a job at - where else? - a wastemanagement company. There's something circuitous about all that.

SCREWDRIVER KILLER

IT WAS YOUR TYPICAL HALLOWEEN BACK IN 1979 IN DETROIT. Kids in ghoulish costumes trick-or-treated their way up and down the sidewalks of suburban Grosse Point Farms. Leaves fell from trees and a cool breeze blew through the air. Detroit News reporter Jeanne Clyne, 44, casually strode along, admiring the sights. Just then, she was approached by a man. Feeling just as casual, the man breezily pulled out a screwdriver and stabbed her 11 times. Clyne died a few hours later. The man was Coral Watts. Not surprisingly, he'd been under psychiatric evaluation for previous attacks on women. Watts explained that he'd been out driving and saw Clyne walking on the sidewalk. He parked, got out, crossed the street and, approaching her from the front, stabbed her repeatedly in the chest. Watts, a.k.a. the Sunday Morning Killer, eventually admitted to killing more than a dozen women, though authorities believe the real number of victims may be closer to 100.

MAULED AT THE MALL

The lovely and completely insane Sylvia Seegrist was perhaps a little too dedicated to the concept of costuming; on Halloween 1985, she donned a set of Army fatigues and headed to the Springfield Mall outside of Philadelphia to shoot people. Seegrist started shooting people right after she parked her Datsun in the parking lot. With her trusty .22-caliber rifle, she opened fire on mall-goer Edward Seitz. Fortunately, though her target was only 30 yards away, Seegrist missed. Twice. Inside, she fired at a woman using an ATM. Fortunately, Seegrist was a lousy shot, and ended up hitting a man near the front door. Her first real victim was a 2- year-old boy outside a Magic Pan restaurant. At first, bystanders thought it was a Halloween prank, until two more children, ages 9 and 10, were shot. Her rampage continued as she shot at just about everything that moved - and didn't move. (Seegrist also shot up an Oriental furniture store.) One man, who hadn't noticed what was going on, was shot point-blank three times and critically wounded. Police later reported that "several" people were shot, but that Seegrist "often missed."

The shooting lasted less than five minutes until John Laufer, a 24-year-old graduate student, subdued Seegrist, simply enough, by telling her to stop. When asked why she was shooting people, Seegrist responded, "My family makes me nervous." It was estimated that Seegrist had fired 20 rounds, killing two people and wounding eight. When she was stopped, she had 10 bullets left in one of her clips.

"BIBLE JOHN"

On Oct. 30, 1969, 20-year-old Helen Puttock and her sister, Jean, went to a ghost-and-goblins party at the Barrowland Ballroom in Glasgow, Scotland. It was there that Helen hooked up with a man named John. The two danced all night; at around midnight, John, Helen and Jean got a cab. Helen was especially impressed with John, who told her he grew up in a religious house and was able to quote random passages from the Bible. Jean got dropped off first and watched Helen drive away with John. That was the last time she saw her sister.

The next morning, a man walking his dog came across what he thought was a pile of discarded rags laying in the street. Looking closer, he discovered a woman's fully clothed body. Helen Puttock had been strangled with her own pantyhose. Apparently she also was on her period, and the murderer nicely removed her sanitary napkin and tucked it into one of Helen's armpits. He also left a bite mark on Helen's body and a semen stain on her clothing. Though "Bible John" has yet to be apprehended, Glasgow police announced in May of this year that they were actively collecting DNA samples from the family members of one suspect, with the hopes that modern forensic technology would soon allow them to crack the 36-year-old case.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE MOST EVIL HOLIDAY EVER

LIKE MOST THINGS EVIL, HALLOWEEN STARTED AS SOMETHING GOOD AND JUST GOT SCREWED UP. Halloween's name came from the Catholic Church's term "All Hallows Eve," which was Nov. 1, or "All Saints Day." But the Irish, possibly drunk at the time, decided in 5th century B.C. to proclaim that summer officially ended on Oct. 31, ruining everyone's party.

Though it's not exactly clear how things turned dark from that decision, it got around town, somehow, that disembodied spirits of those who'd died throughout the preceding year would come back in search of living bodies to possess for the new year. The Celts believed that, during the period from Oct. 31-Nov. 2, space and time were suspended. In other words, a free-for-all.

Of course, the still-living folks didn't want to be possessed or give up their bodies, so there was somewhat of a standoff. Oddly, the living folks decided the best way to dissuade dead people from wanting to possess them was to scare the shit out of them, so they dressed up in costumes that made them look like total freaks. This whole charade made its way into Roman traditions; and it was brought to America in the 1800s by, once again, the Irish, who were fleeing their homeland from the potato famine.

The custom of trick-or-treating, however, didn't come from the Irish, but from the Europeans, who had some custom called "souling," named after "All Souls Day," which falls on Nov. 2. Souling entailed going door-to-door asking for "soul cakes," which represented prayers for those who died.

Now how did all this turn into a scary holiday? That remains to be seen, but American filmmakers and writers like Stephen King have been capitalizing on it ever since. - Kevin Giordano