Razor blades reported in Halloween candy in Cincinnati suburb

COLERAIN TWP., Ohio (FOX19) - Colerain Township police are warning parents to check their children’s Halloween candy after they said they received reports of objects found in candy bars Thursday night.

They do say this could be a hoax, however, and they are still investigating.

“As of now, the objects are reported to be metal and similar to razor blades. These reports are from the Pleasant Run area,” police said in a tweet just before 3:30 a.m. Friday.

“We want to stress the importance of parents checking their child’s candy for any signs of tampering,” they wrote. “We are currently investigating these reports. If you have any information or discover any objects, please call us at 513-321-COPS.”

Sgt. Scott Owen said police received two reports of tainted candy from two families in separate households who went trick or treating together with their children.

The father discovered a razor blade in his son’s Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup when the boy noticed the candy packaging appeared to be slit open and gave it to his dad for a closer look, Owen said.

“Are you kidding me? What kind of sick people would do that to kids," AJ Ashurst said.

He says he called Colerain Township police immediately and tossed out every bit of candy his six kids brought home.

“So we just took all, I wasn’t going through each piece of candy. I just took it all and threw it away. All their bags went to the garbage. Straight to the garbage," Ashurst said.

He says there will be no more going door-to-door for his family.

“I’ll never let me kids trick or treat again. They can get Halloween costumes, we’ll throw a Halloween party at my house or something. They’ll never trick or treat again," Ashurst said.

Shortly after or around the same time, the other parent spread her child’s candy out to check it by hand as a precaution and was hurt.

The woman needed three stitches after she says the blade sliced her.

“One of the parents noticed it when she fanned the candy out. She actually sliced her finger open,” Owen said. “The two incidents are contained in the same area, so we are thinking it only came from one house in a large, five-block area. We have the razor blades and we’ll try to see if we can get any DNA off them."

He said the area where the suspected tainted candy was found is too large for police to go door-to-door searching for the suspect: “You are talking about a five block radius. These are giant blocks.”

Police advise parents to carefully check every single piece of their children’s candy before they eat it. Immediately set aside anything that appears to be partially torn or looks like it’s been tampered with and call police at once, especially if you find any objects, Owen said.

He said police in Colerain have never dealt with this kind of a situation before: “I’ve heard about it and seen it on the news, but we’ve never encountered it before here so this is a first.”

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