How Many Children Perished From Halloween Treats?

How often were children poisoned or maimed by evil strangers peddling treats? Not easy to say. There is no crime of Halloween sadism so crime statistics wouldn't cover it. But Joel Best figured that whenever a child died or was hospitalized by a Halloween treat, the newspapers would cover the story in the first few days of November. He carefully studied the days immediately following Halloween to find out just how often this had happened. The newspapers reported some worrying incidents. William V. Shine gave laxative pills to neighborhood children and made some of them sick for an evening. Helen Fyle gave teenagers in edible household supplies from the cupboard under the kitchen sink and told them to their faces that it