People complain about a lack of accountability in today's society -- politicians and bankers alike escape from scandals with no consequences beyond a stint in rehab and a nice book deal. Well, we at Cracked are all about finding the people who have made our lives just a little bit worse . Things didn't have to be as messed up as they are now, and it only takes a few assholes to ruin life for the rest of us.

5 Ronald Clark O'Bryan Ruined Halloween

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If you grew up in America, odds are pretty good that you've donned your costume and done your Halloween rounds just like millions of other children. You may cherish the memories of getting home from a long night of trick-or-treating, pulling off your ninja mask and dumping a huge-ass sack of candy onto the carpet. You may also remember, rather less fondly, waiting for what seemed to be a light-year (concepts of time and space weren't your strong suit) for your parents to finish searching said candy for deadly poison.

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"Remember, kids, there are always strangers out to murder you."

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If you asked them what they were doing, they'd tell you stories of evil people all across America inserting poison or razor blades or some other horrifying object into the candy they hand out to children. A policeman may even have shown up at your school to lecture you about it, or you may have seen public service announcements on television, warning you to only accept candy from people you knew, and only treats that still had their wrappers intact.

What is it about Halloween candy that turned normal grown-ups into over-protective zealots? It's such a bizarre, improbable thing to worry about, like not letting you jump in the ball pit at Chuck E. Cheese's for fear there might be snakes in there. How many poison-dealing mass murderers can there be in the Western world, anyway?

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A little poison is good for kids. Keeps 'em from getting soft.

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Actually, it all traces back to one person. The man in question is Ronald Clark O'Bryan, an almighty dickhole who poisoned his own 8-year-old son with cyanide in order to collect on a $40,000 life insurance policy, and who we will exclusively refer to with irreverent nicknames from now on because, seriously, screw that guy.

Asshole O'Bryan slipped the poison into a bunch of Pixy Stix, which he then stapled shut. Yes, we said a bunch -- one just wouldn't do, because following some strange logic accessible to only the criminally insane, Shitbricks O'Bryan decided to poison every child his son went trick-or-treating with. Through either a miracle or, more likely, the fact that Pixy Stix suck balls, none of the other kids were harmed. O'Bryan was caught, found guilty and executed, but the case was widely publicized and so the damage had already been done.