Police in Chesco probe reports of needles in Halloween candy
Police have launched an investigation after receiving what they term as credible reports that someone in Kennett Square handed out Twix candy bars laced with needles on Halloween.
Police have launched an investigation after receiving what they term as credible reports that someone in Kennett Square handed out Twix candy bars laced with needles on Halloween.
"It seems like every Halloween, somewhere in the U.S. gets a report like this," Chester County District Attorney Tom Hogan said Sunday. "And, yes, absolutely in this case we are finding needles in some of the Halloween candy, which of course is a nightmare for all the parents and all the kids."
No one ate the dangerous candy and no one was hurt, police said.
Authorities were first alerted about midnight on Saturday when a parent who had been examining the candy given to his children reported finding the sewing needles inside bars given to four children.
The youngsters had been out in the Stenning Hills area of Kennett Square on Saturday night.
A fifth child came forward at about noon Sunday and said he'd found a similar needle, but this time inside a Snickers bar. The boy - who gave police the candy and needle, authorities said - had also been trick-or-treating on the west side of the one-square-mile borough.
"It's a disturbed individual that would do something that would impact children like this," said Kennett Square Mayor Matt Fetick. "We're deeply concerned, and we're going to use all available resources to find who did it."
Kennett Square police and Chester County detectives interviewed the children's families Sunday and were processing the candy and needles in an attempt to recover fingerprints and DNA evidence.
In an interview with The Inquirer, Miguel Luna said that after his three children returned from trick-or-treating a neighbor alerted the family to a Facebook post showing a picture of a Twix bar with a needle sticking out of it.
Then, he said, as they were checking their candy, his daughter Maria, 11, who had gone out dressed as a queen, pricked her finger on her own Twix bar.
The family then combed through all their Halloween loot - Miguel, 9, and Alfonso, 3, had both been ninjas - and found three more needles, Miguel said.
They went trick-or-treating with their mother, Maria, aunt, and a big group of friends.
In all, Luna reported needles in candy given four children, police said.
"There are a lot of kids walking in this area," Miguel Luna said of Halloween night in the neighborhood of compact homes with leaf covered front yards and carved pumpkins.
No reports of candy tampering were received by police elsewhere, helping narrow the investigation to "a fairly isolated area," said Hogan, the district attorney.
"We are going to work backward from where the kids actually trick-or-treated, and then we're going to find out where this stuff came from," he said.
Hogan predicted that the inquiry would be "developing swiftly."
In the meantime, he cautioned parents to fully inspect all Halloween candy before anyone eats it.
"Once we find out who did this, I'm sure the parents will have suggestion for how we should deal with that person," he said.
Alex Wiggleworth is a Philly.com staff writer.
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