Debunking The Myths
Over the years various experts have tried to debunk the various candy tampering stories. Among this group is Joel Best, a University of Delaware sociologist who specializes in candy tampering legends. In his studies, and the book "Halloween Sadism: the evidence", he researched newspapers from 1958 on in search of candy tampering . Of these stories, fewer than 90 instances might have qualified as actual candy tampering, Best has found five child deaths that were initially thought by local authorities to be caused by homicidal strangers, but none of those was sustained by investigation.
Read more about this topic: Poisoned Candy Myths
Famous quotes containing the word myths:
“... the first reason for psychology’s failure to understand what people are and how they act, is that clinicians and psychiatrists, who are generally the theoreticians on these matters, have essentially made up myths without any evidence to support them; the second reason for psychology’s failure is that personality theory has looked for inner traits when it should have been looking for social context.”
—Naomi Weisstein (b. 1939)