Forest Park Lawndale Funeral Home & Cemetery

Rumor has it that the gentle whispers and pleasant conversations of children often linger the hallways in Houston’s Forest Park Lawndale Funeral Home & Cemetery. Among the ornate and angelic scenery that honor the peaceful lives of departed loved ones, visitors are offered warm greetings at sunset from the figure of a young boy.  A source at the funeral home says he often sits at the entrance. Staff has noted that ritualistic voodoo-like objects are frequently found on the hallow grounds.  A source states that the cemetery crew has dug up jars of objects near gravesites. The crew has seen: animal tongues, embryos, cat hearts, chicken bodies, you name it. As peculiar as it sounds, paranormal activity and ritual offerings are not uncommon at funeral homes and cemeteries. However, not all cemeteries have infamy lying in between the buried.

Listed in Houston’s National Register of Historical Places, Forest Park Lawndale Cemetery & Funeral Home has resided on 42 acres in the 4th largest city since 1922. Many notable Texans are buried there. Two stand out … and remain notorious in death.

The heartless monster that “killed Halloween” by creating a national panic after he laced Halloween candy with cyanide in the 70s is among the buried.  And a bright eyed born-again pick axe killer who created an international debate on redemption and was the first woman in Texas since the civil war to be executed found her final resting place there as well.  Their infamous crimes horrified the public. Their tragic endings made them macabre legends.

Ronald Clark O'Bryan

Amid the peaceful souls of men, women and children lies Ronald Clark O’Bryan, nicknamed the Candyman. This madman literally poisoned the idea of Halloween and placed fear into the hearts of children and their parents everywhere. In 1974 O’Bryan, a resident of a suburb of Houston, murdered his 8-year-old son, Timothy, on Halloween. Driven by greed, the Candyman laced his son’s Halloween candy with cyanide in order to collect on an insurance policy. During the trial it was revealed that the Candyman played the “good father” and offered to escort the neighborhood children while they were trick or treating. It was then that he passed out cyanide-laced “Pixy Stix” to his son, daughter and the group of children to cover his tracks. The Candyman placed blame during testimony on a person at another house. When the sadistic father and his children arrived home, it was at his urging that Timothy try the Pixy Stix. The child ingested the contaminated confection before he went to bed. Timothy woke up vomiting and died by the time he arrived to the hospital that evening.  Detectives were able to collect the other tainted sweets before any other children ingested any. One detective eerily noted while in their search for the toxic treats that “an 11-year-old boy who was given one of the tainted Pixy Stix was found asleep in bed later than night, cradling the tube of poisoned candy in his arms. He had been unable to pry out the staples O’Bryan had used to reseal the plastic container.”

Shortly after Timothy’s death, and during the trial, widespread panic ran rampant in neighborhoods all over the country. Who was poisoning children? Was there a sick neighbor on the loose like O’Bryan stated? Who would want to kill Halloween? Stories of copycats and scandalous tales took over the news, the papers and added a special ingredient to the neighborhood gossip each year. Subsequently, children were taught Halloween safety and advised to only visit the houses of neighbors they knew.  Parents made an extra effort to develop a Halloween candy inventory and thoroughly inspected each morsel. Hospitals began offering free x-rays and examinations of children’s treats. After the Candyman sucked the life out of Halloween, the nation became a different place; Halloween became one of most scrutinized and feared holidays to date.

O’Bryan, the Candyman, was convicted by a Texas jury and sentence to death by lethal injection. He was executed on March 31, 1984.

Also among the catacombs and sacred landscape of Forest Park Lawndale Cemetery are the remains of Karla FayeTucker.  The convicted born-again axe-killer created an international outpouring of support that demanded her release. Christian conservatives, death penalty opponents and world leaders likened her execution to the “killing of an angel.” While incarcerated, the Houston native was well liked and considered an inspiration by prison officials and fellow inmates. She was cute, charming, upbeat and positive. Tucker enjoyed sharing the words of the Bible. And people listened. But it was Tucker’s drug infused wild child lifestyle prior to her death row conviction that did not win her a reprieve.

Tucker spiraled down a horrendous path at an early age.  Distraught over her parents’ divorce and finding out that her birth was the result of an extramarital affair, Tucker turned to heroin and sex parties by the time she was 11. After dropping out of school in the 7th grade, alongside with her mother, Tucker began prostituting herself and traveling with rock bands as a groupie. Tucker’s innocence was lost before she was a teen. After a brief and abusive marriage at 16, Tucker took a liking to man named Daniel Garrett. Garrett supported and supplied Tucker’s drug habit, and alongside her, fueled her partying and sex orgy ways.

Karla Faye Tucker

Motivated by rage, drugs and robbery, Tucker and Garrett targeted 27-year-old Jerry Lynn Dean, Tucker’s best friend’s husband. Dean was hacked more than 20 times with a 3-foot-long pickax as he lay sleeping in his Houston apartment. The motive, Tucker later explained, was to settle a grudge she had against Dean for once parking his leaking motorcycle in her living room and for destroying the only picture she had of herself with her mother. Also killed was Deborah Thornton, 32, who met Dean at a party and went home with him. Thornton was hacked more than 20 times. The pickax was left embedded in her chest. Tucker, 23 at the time, claimed that she experienced sexual pleasure every time she plunged the heavy ax into her victims.

Tucker and Garrett were convicted and sentenced to death in 1984. While in prison Tucker found the power of the Lord, studied the Bible and spread her new found gospel. Sober for the first time in her life, Tucker was adamant about living the rest of her life as a good Christian and wanted to help others. Tucker won the admiration of others while awaiting her death sentence. A handful of the victim’s family members were also touched by Tucker’s faith and repentance.

Garret died from liver disease while in prison.  Tucker was denied clemency despite her appeals and campaign from supporters. She was executed by lethal injection in 1998. Then Governor, George W. Bush said the following regarding Tucker’s case, “A pardon from a death sentence in Texas reportedly has never been granted to anyone based on a religious conversion. And of the 36 pardons that have been granted to Texas death-row inmates since 1976, not one has been granted solely for humanitarian reasons.”

Tucker’s new found faith could not save her from the conviction handed down from the savage crime she chose to commit. This “angel” paid the ultimate price for her sins. She still holds the title as the unofficial divine and angelic face for the opposition of the Texas death penalty.