Razor blade found in daughter's Halloween candy bar, Stony Brook mom says

Keisha Dreschler said she  could hardly believe her eyes.

On Thursday night, the Stony Brook mother of three allowed her children to eat a couple of pieces of candy from Halloween when her 13-year-old daughter tore open a mini 3 Musketeers bar and found a double-sided razor blade tucked inside the bar's chocolate-covered, fluffy, whipped mousse.

"I'm still like in shock," Dreschler told Newsday. "It's a terrible experience. … I just stared at it for a couple of minutes and tried to figure out what to do. So I called the police."

Suffolk County police Sixth Precinct detectives are investigating how the blade got inside the candy and if the wrapper had been previously torn open.  

"It's very concerning," Police Commissioner Rodney K. Harrison told reporters Thursday. "When someone is willing to put a razor blade in a candy bar, it doesn't get more concerning than that."

Dreschler, who works in human resources for a background screening technology company, said her daughter had dressed up as Cupid on Monday and went trick-or-treating in Setauket and Stony Brook with 10 friends.

Afterward, the kids, all students at P.J. Gelinas Junior High School in East Setauket, went to a friend's house where they traded candy, Dreschler said. It's unclear if the 3 Musketeers bar was collected by Dreschler's daughter or if she received it by trade.

Suffolk police retracted a previous report that the girls had traded their candy at school.

After dinner Thursday, Dreschler said, her daughter went looking for a late-night treat and found a 3 Musketeers bar that appeared thicker than usual and oddly misshapen. The teen tore open the chocolate bar and found the silver-colored blade inside, she said. 

"It's just a really bizarre experience because we live in an area where things like that don't typically happen," said Dreschler, who threw out all of the candy her children had collected.

Police in Oregon this week are investigating three reports of razor blades found inside Halloween candy in the city of Eugene.

Reports of tainted Halloween candy go back decades but have largely been confined to urban legend.

There have been scattered incidents over the years, including a razor blade found in a candy bar in Staten Island in 1991 and wire embedded in a chocolate bar in Oceanside in 1977. During the 1970s, other Long Islanders reported finding pins, staples, razor blades, nails and drugs inside their kids' Halloween hauls.

Joel Best, a sociology and criminal justice professor at the University of Delaware, has studied Halloween tampering for decades. 

While there have been isolated incidents, Best said the majority of recent cases ultimately turned out to be hoaxes, adding that there have been no reports of children being seriously injured or killed by tainted candy.

"The question is, 'Are there maniacs out there passing out contaminated treats?' " he said. "I don't think this happens very much. And when it does happen, I don't think the results are very serious."

Dreschler said the blade she saw in her daughter's candy was no hoax, describing it as "a very disturbing experience."

"I'm still trying to absorb it," she said. "I think that someone in the immediate area purposely did it."

Suffolk authorities said they are investigating whether other residents in Stony Brook and Setauket received tainted candy. They are urging parents to monitor their children when opening candy from trick-or-treating.

Dreschler, meanwhile, said Halloween will never be the same.

"It's not really as pure and fun as it should be," she said. "It's definitely dampened the experience."