Killer Legends Page #6

that nobody gets any joy

out of executing anybody,

but it is also clear

that most Americans

want to get on with this.

They are upset

that you're alive.

I-I can see that point, sure,

but here again,

I don't think

that revenge is right.

I don't think society

is entitled to revenge.

You are accused of ruining

Halloween for everybody.

Well,

that's a matter of opinion.

( Chuckles )

Joshua:

March 31, 1984,

the day of o'Bryan's execution

had finally arrived.

He was to be executed

just after midnight.

As the hour approached,

the frenzy outside

reached a fever pitch.

News reporter:
Demonstrators

were outside the prison

waiting for the announcement

they wanted to hear.

Parents of other murdered

children joined the vigil.

You know, how could anyone do

something to their own child?

News reporter:

Dying together.

What all of us would give

to have the chance

to have ours back.

Joshua:
Do you think Halloween

will ever be the same again?

Oh, I don't think Halloween

has changed a great deal,

except maybe gotten

a little safer.

Joshua:

At exactly 12:
40 A.M.

O'Bryan was injected with

a lethal cocktail of drugs,

twice the normal amount,

to account for

his 250-pound weight.

After o'Bryan's eyes fluttered,

his chest heaved,

and it was over.

News reader on t. V:

Ronald o'Bryan,

the man fellow inmates

called the candy man,

was killed by lethal injection

this morning

at a huntsville, Texas, prison.

On t. V:
Ronald o'Bryan

went to his deathbed

never admitting

that he killed his own son.

the condemned man

did ask to be forgiven.

Also to anyone

I have offended in any way

during my 39 years.

I pray and ask your forgiveness,

just as I forgive anyone

who offended me in any way.

Susan:

Ronald o'Bryan is dead.

His ex-wife sees the execution

as the end of a nightmare,

and a chance

for a brand new beginning.

Joshua:
For many the idea

that we were killing the man

who killed Halloween

seemed justified.

O'Bryan had to die

so we could have our fun back.

People were celebrating it,

there's no question about it,

but it was

kind of a catharsis, really,

and people welcomed the event.

He really had not just

desecrated the family tie,

but he had actually

in some fundamental way

desecrated the idea of Halloween

by taking a scary story

and literally making it true.

he used the urban legend

as a smokescreen.

He used it as an alibi.

I couldn't have done it

because this is

the sort of thing

that an anonymous

creepy killer would do,

and we all know that

because of urban legends.

Joshua:

In the ultimate irony,

o'Bryan's decision to enact

the tainted candy myth

turned fiction into reality,

allowing the candy man

to continue haunting Halloween

for generations to come.

Look, it's right there.

Interviewer:

Mr. o'Bryan, your case

has probably created terror

in the hearts of parents.

In fact, I'm told

that the inmates

occasionally refer to you

as the candy man, is that so?

Joshua:

A babysitter is watching TV

after putting the kids to bed

when she gets a call

from a mysterious stranger.

( Phone rings )

Hello.

Have you checked the children?

Joshua:
Thinking it's a prank,

she hangs up.

the same mysterious man

calls again.

Hello?

Have you checked the children?

Joshua:

Only now the question ends

with a devilish laugh.

The babysitter reports the call.

Hello, could you

get me the police.

I've been getting

weird phone calls.

Joshua:
After a few minutes,

a hurried voice calls back.

( Phone rings )

Sgt. Sachar:
Jill,

this is sergeant sachar.

Listen to me.

We've traced the call.

The caller is in the house.

The calls are coming

from the house.

It's coming from

inside the house.

Joshua:
Just at that moment,

the babysitter looks over

as a man is coming

down the stairs.

( Scream )

Well, that really happened

to a girl in my hometown.

( Chuckles )

Oh, yes. I'm sure it did.

I'm sure most of you grew up

thinking that this happened

to girls in all your hometowns,

but it didn't.

Joshua:
Yes, the babysitter

and the man upstairs

is a popular urban legend,

but is there any truth

behind it?

One would think so

considering all these examples,

but when dealing

with urban legends,

the truth is never

quite what it seems.

Rachel:

When I think babysitter,

I think about me babysitting

as a teenager

and how fearful I was.

You know,

being in a strange house,

hearing strange sounds,

not being familiar,

but what was interesting

is that I started researching

babysitters,

thinking that I wouldn't

have a hard time

finding a case of a babysitter

by following some kind of

death or kidnapping,

the children upstairs

being killed or whatever.

It's very difficult to find

any true crimes

to connect

this urban legend line.

about babysitting is that it

doesn't increase your danger

of being attacked at all.

It would be

a completely random event

for a babysitter to be attacked

during a house burglary,

but it induces anxiety

because suddenly

they're responsible for

these other people's kids,

and it has nothing to do

with your potential

for becoming a crime victim...

but it may be getting it

expressed in stories

in which the babysitter

becomes the crime victim.

Joshua:
You would think

with the amount of babysitters

getting killed

in popular culture now,

like, we would have just like

gotten a case immediately.

Oh, it took me

to going back to the '50s

to actually find one.

We found this case

of janett christman

here in Columbia, Missouri,

which is why we're here.

My name is Carol Haley holt,

and I was a very good friend

of janett christman

from first grade

through the time of her death.

It was march 18, 1950.

Janett was babysitting

for the romack family

out kind of in the west edge

of Columbia...

it really wasn't

in the city limits.

It was kind of an eerie night.

I also was babysitting,

and I just felt uneasy,

and that was unusual for me

because I did

quite a bit of babysitting...

but I just felt that something

was going on about 12 o'clock,

and I even got up

to check the door

and make sure it was locked,

went in to check

the little boy...

he was fine.

And then the next morning,

the phone rang.

My mother went in to answer

and told me that janett

had been killed

while she was babysitting.

Joshua:

I had heard that

there had been a phone call

to the police.

Well, Mrs. romack tried to call

to check on janett

with the thunder,

and she was afraid

the little boy might wake up...

and she tried to call

and received a busy signal.

( Busy tone on phone )

Joshua:
What the romack

family didn't know

is that janett

had called the police

while she was being attacked,

but the only thing they heard

were desperate screams.

Unable to trace the call,

the police were helpless

to stop her murder.

Janett had skin

under her fingernails.

She had many abrasions

on her body,

but the final thing was

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