He was called the “candy man” by his fellow inmates. He lived on death row in Texas for nearly ten years after being convicted of murdering his eight year old son. When his death was announced on the night of his execution outside the Walls Prison Unit in Huntsville, Texas, the crowd chanted “Trick or Treat”.

Later that night, O’Bryan told his son Timothy, he could have one piece of candy before going to bed; then he sat beside Timothy and encouraged him to choose the Pixie Stix. Within minutes Timothy was ill and vomiting. He died shortly thereafter at a hospital emergency room.

Execution night in Huntsville

O’Bryan never confessed to the crime. He maintained that a person at one of the houses he took the children to, gave them the poisoned candy. However, he could not identify the house or the street it was on, though they had only visited two streets. He eventually changed his recollection and identified a house after being pressed by investigators. But police learned that no one was home at that house on Halloween, as the man who lived there was working at the time, surrounded by 200 witnesses.

The jury took only 45 minutes to convict O’Bryan and 70 minutes to assess the death penalty. The musical group Siouxsie and the Banshees recorded a song, Candyman, on their album Tinderbox, about O’Bryan and his infamous deed. The song can be heard on YouTube.  

Those who chronicle the commission of crimes and deeds of criminals rarely mention this ruthless criminal, yet he stands out as possibly the most vile of them all. It may be that historians tend to be generous to those misfits who seek redemption. Even after attempting to spread misery and gloom around the world, he is often given a pass by serious crime writers.

He targeted an entire city although he never even live there.  And he did it, simply because he hated the tradition of those who did. Some have speculated that he had mental problems, having been quoted as saying “his head wasn’t screwed on quite right.” Others attributed his evil deed to physical possibilities, suggesting perhaps his shoes were too tight. But in the end, the best conclusion was that his heart was just too small. Whatever the underlying causes for his criminal behavior, he donned the garb and appearance of one of the community’s most revered characters on a night reserved for family cheer to commit crimes throughout the city in a single night.

He was called the Grinch and he stole Christmas from “Whoville,” or at least he thought he had. He took all the presents from every home, all the decorations, and the food for the Christmas Day feast. But to his surprise, the citizens awoke the next morning and celebrated Christmas. They didn’t need all the commercial accompaniments. Instead they began singing Christmas carols, and enjoying the special day despite the Grinch’s efforts to ruin the holiday.

The vicious criminal suddenly realized that he may have been wrong about Christmas. As he said himself, upon seeing the citizens celebrate even in the shadows of his dastardly deed; “Maybe Christmas doesn’t come from a store. Maybe Christmas….perhaps….means a little more.” So he returned the loot, sought to be forgiven, and served up the Christmas roast himself.

If you would like to read the entire account of this horrific crime, the poem can be viewed at this website. http://xmasfun.com/stories/Grinch/Text.asp
 MERRY CHRISTMAS. ENJOY THE WEEK!
DON’T LET THE GRINCH STEAL YOUR HAPPY SEASON!!

Having just returned from a few days in the balmy weather of the Florida Keys, I couldn’t resist a story befitting the small but eclectic community of Key West. It is a great place to visit, especially when the weather turns wet and chilly in Texas. Enough vacation reminiscence; this is not a travel blog!

The Count – Carl Tanzler

In 1930, 20 year old Maria Elena Milagro de Hoyos met Tanzler when she came to the hospital with her mother. Elena was soon diagnosed with tuberculosis, which was, at that time, a likely death sentence. Tanzler became obsessed with Elena, making proposals of marriage and attempting to win her affection. His proposals were rejected. Tanzler did convince Elena and her family that he could treat her illness with a variety of medicines, x-rays and electrical equipment. His treatment, however, was not performed at the hospital, where he would likely have been found out, but at the Hoyos home. Elena succumbed to the disease a year later.

This could have ended the story of a beautiful young woman dying and an older man’s obsessive love for her going unfulfilled, but that was not to be. Two years after her death, Tanzler, in the dark of night, stole Elena’s corpse from the mausoleum where her family had laid the body to rest. He took her remains to his home where he began repairing the decomposing Elena. He used plaster-of-paris, wax soaked silk rags, strands of Elena’s hair that had been cut by her mother and given to Tanzler shortly after her death, wires, and glass eyes. He also bought and dressed the corpse in fine jewelry and clothing. Copius amounts of perfume, disinfectant and preserving agents were also used to cover the odor and slow the process of decomposition.

Soon other residents began questioning the “Count’s” excessive purchases of perfume and women’s clothing. A paper boy reported seeing him, through the window of his house, dancing with a large doll. Rumors began to circulate that he had stolen the body of his love. Elena’s sister confronted Tanzler about the stories and he was arrested for grave robbing, desecrating a corpse and destroying a grave. Surprisingly, he was found mentally competent to stand trial.

 A trial was held amid much publicity, but charges against Tanzler were eventually dropped due to a problem with the statute of limitations. You see, he kept the body at his home for seven years.

After the trial, Elena’s corpse was placed on display at the Dean-Lopez Funeral Home in Key West where it was reported that more than 6,800 people viewed the abused body. With all the public attention, Tanzler was reported to have later charged 25 cents for tourists to view his home.

Tanzler eventually moved back to the town in Florida where his ex-wife lived. He wrote an autobiography in 1947, is reported to have been granted U.S. citizenship in 1950 and died in 1952.

Williamson County, Texas has always been proud of its “tough on crime” reputation. There are anecdotal stories of undercover drug agents from Austin, in neighboring Travis County, making sure they set up drug buys just inside Williamson County so that the dealers could be charged in the much tougher environment of the Williamson County judicial system.

Ken Anderson (left) was the face of that Williamson County system for many years. He served as District Attorney for 16 years and as a District Court Judge from 2002 until his recent resignation and conviction for Criminal Contempt of Court. Depending on who you ask, he was either “upstanding citizen, prosecutor of the year, and local Sunday School teacher,” or he was a man whose sense of values didn’t include the word “justice.” In either scenario, he is now a convicted criminal.

Michael Morton was a young husband and father who lived in Williamson County when his wife was brutally murdered. The highly regarded, but incompetent investigator, Sheriff Jim Boutwell, decided that Morton murdered his wife, even though no physical evidence existed to suggest that theory. He and Anderson, who was then District Attorney, made a case against Morton, ignoring and concealing a few facts they learned along the way.

Anderson apparently didn’t think it was important to let Morton and his lawyers know that his dead wife’s credit card was used in San Antonio after she was murdered or that Williamson County sheriff’s investigator, Don Wood, had been told there was a witness who could identify the woman who used it.  Also concealed was the fact that witnesses in the neighborhood told investigators of a suspicious green van seen behind the Morton home on the day of the murder.

He also concealed details of a conversation Wood had with the mother of the dead woman. She called Wood and told him that her grandson witnessed the murder and said that his father, Michael Morton, was not there when it happened. The child had also described other details of the murder scene which indisputably indicated he witnessed the murder, but ace investigator Wood apparently never followed up. Even more importantly, Ken Anderson (above right) hid this evidence from Morton, who was convicted of murdering his wife. Morton went to prison and Ken Anderson became a judge.

After 25 years in prison, the last five of which he fought John Bradley, the man who replaced Ken Anderson as D.A., for the right to test DNA evidence, Michael Morton (left) was cleared of all charges. Lost forever was the ability to see his son grow into a man. He went into prison a young man full of dreams. After 25 years, he came out unbent.

Anderson was recently convicted of contempt of court for having hidden the evidence and then lying about it. But his deeds are more repulsive than that. The real killer of Michael Morton’s wife also murdered an Austin woman after Mrs. Morton’s death, a crime he couldn’t have committed if he had been arrested for the previous crime. That murder went unsolved until Morton’s defense team connected the two. The real murderer also committed other crimes in the 25 years before he was exposed. Nearly as catastrophic was that a young child grew to adulthood believing his father, Michael Morton, had murdered his mother. All these tragedies are piled at the feet of Ken Anderson.

 He served five days of a ten day sentence for his criminal act. Anderson’s no longer a judge and can’t practice law. Many question what that says about Texas justice. Before his professional demise, groups were calling for his resignation, even starting a yard sign campaign as depicted in the photo above. During the nearly 30 years after he committed the crime, he continued to enjoy all the family freedoms his victim, Michael Morton, was denied. He also continued to practice his brand of justice in Williamson County, Texas.

I’ve published a novel, Cheating Justice, in which I describe some of the reasons I believe our criminal justice system sometimes goes awry. The Michael Morton case is one of several such injustices in Texas that inspired me to write the novel. Our law enforcement professionals are usually heroic, but it is important that we not ignore the short-comings of those who soil the profession.