In the summer of 2016, children at a South Carolina apartment complex ran out of the woods screaming. They said there were clowns in the trees. No one believed them. Within weeks, the sightings had spread across the country, school lockdowns, armed mobs, arrests, and a panic so intense that McDonald’s benched Ronald McDonald. But where did it actually start? The answer is stranger than the legend. Then: Halloween night, 1974. An eight-year-old boy in Pasadena, Texas eats a piece of candy from his trick-or-treat bag. He’s dead within the hour. For fifty years, parents have checked their children’s candy because of what happened that night but the real story is darker than the urban legend it created. TW: Child death Watch More! These Haunted Houses Killed People. And Some Are Still Open. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sttk1jIMwnI Horrifying Things That Happened on Horror Movie Sets https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kaVaxn0eMI&t=2s The Halloween Legends That Are More REAL Than You Think https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTgAzFbqXvQ Love true crime, horror, folklore, and the unexplained? Join us in the Rogue Detecting Society on Patreon. Start for free to stay up to date on all things HSP with our newsletter, bonus content, and more. If you want to dive deeper into a community of fellow darkly curious listeners, upgrade for ad-free listening, monthly bonus episodes with topics voted on by members, merch perks, and Patreon-only group chats. High Council members also get Footnotes, our weekly after-show where Kaelyn dives deeper into the episode, recent true crime news, theories, and other scary stories from around the internet. Join free or go paid to unlock the full vault of chilling tales! 👻 : https://www.patreon.com/heartstartspounding ❥๑━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━๑❥ About Heart Starts Pounding Hosted by Kaelyn Moore, Heart Starts Pounding explores the terrifying, the mysterious, and the downright spooky. Kaelyn brings you chilling true crime, unexplained phenomena, and haunting stories from across the globe and submitted by listeners like you. Have a heart-pounding story to tell or a case request? Submit your story at https://www.heartstartspounding.com/stories Socials https://www.instagram.com/heartstartspounding/ https://www.tiktok.com/@heartstartspounding https://www.facebook.com/heartstartspounding/ Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6mbxMOHKjy7jQGl3V08rE3 ApplePodcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/heart-starts-pounding-horrors-hauntings-and-mysteries/id1618084297 Web: https://heartstartspounding.com/