CAMBRIDGE – The family of a Hespeler three-year old feels their child was tricked rather than treated Halloween night.

That night along with her bag of candy, Rod Murray’s daughter was given a religious comic book that was anything but comical.

One of three books handed out features drawings of a child being beaten with a thick wooden stick and cast out into the rain by an adult, after an unsuccessful night of begging on the street for money.

Sleeping in a box in an alley, the child is later told “Jesus loves you,” by a woman passing by. A page later, the child appears to be in pain and dies, before being carried into the sky by an angel.

Another book shows a man and a woman – presumably Adam and Eve – covered in sores and standing under a “sin” tree after disobeying a faceless figure. They are later joined behind a wall, erected by the faceless figure, by other men, women and children covered in sores.

“Masquerading such images as a message of love couldn’t be more flawed,” Linda Garneau, Murray’s sister-in-law, said of the religious comic book.

“Halloween should not be a political or evangelical event, let it remain a celebration for those little ones among us who still believe in unicorns and supermen,” she stated.

“What were they thinking? Who would even publish this,” Garneau asked in an interview.

Murray echoed Garneau’s sentiments.

“Anyone thinking that a three-year-old Princess Rapunzel … needs to be subjected to pictures of cruelty and violence on any day, let alone (Halloween) – a day for kids to be kids – is pretty shameful,” he said.