On Halloween night in 1974, 8-year-old Timothy O’Bryan became the first child in American history to die from intentionally poisoned Halloween candy.

After trick-or-treating in his Pasadena, Texas, neighborhood, he began to consume a Giant Pixy Stix that had been laced with potassium cyanide.

Timothy fell violently ill within moments and died less than an hour later on the way to the hospital.

This tragic incident was reported nationally — in part because it validated repeated media warnings for parents to inspect trick-or-treat candy that began in the ‘50s and ‘60s.

On Oct. 28, 1970, the country’s most prominent paper, The New York Times, published a piece titled “Those Treats May Be Tricks.”

It raised alarming questions about razor blades in apples, lye on gum, sleeping pills and more unconfirmed claims, as well as warnings from a New York health official — which readers and other outlets treated as established fact.

Over the decades, advice columns (Dear Abby, Ann Landers), magazines, such as Reader’s Digest, local news, police and hospitals all amplified the trick-or-treat scare — some hospitals even offered to X-ray candy before children consumed it.

According to Robert Thompson, a trustee professor and the founding director of the Bleier Center for........

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