DEADLY TRICK OR TREAT

Halloween can leave a bitter taste behind, as these evil trick-or-treat crimes prove...

- By Sarah Marinos

WARNING SIGNS

On Halloween in 1964, Elsie Drucker, 13, was looking at her trick-or-treat spoils at her Long Island, New York home when she noticed two large round tablets. Printed on each was a warning: 'Poison. Keep away from children and animals.' Worried that other trick-or-treaters had received the potent pesticide, Elsie's father called the police. Elsie and her sister, Irene, 15, helped them pinpoint who'd given them the tablets and 47-year-old Helen Pfeil was arrested. Police found empty ant poison boxes in her kitchen. Pfeil said she wasn’t malicious but felt some kids who demanded candy were “a little old to be trick-or-treating” so she’d handed them arsenic-laced pills, steel wool or dog biscuits instead. Ironically, that night, Pfeil’s husband was out trick-or-treating with their sons. Pfeil was found guilty of two counts of child endangerment. Luckily nobody ate the poison.

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