The Candy Lady

The Candy Lady

Early 20th century was when this urban legend was started, children started going missing in a small county in Texas. People began blaming it on The Candy Lady, a woman who supposedly lured children to her home with candy/sweets and then they were never seen or heard from again.

The children who people believed were affected by this urban legend in the area told stories of how they would wake in the morning to find candy sitting on top their window sills and it was always in the morning never during The day. Scared if their parents found out that never told them because the children believed they might try to stop the person, or thing, leaving the candy, so they didn’t tell any adults.

After a child had been given the candy for a while they would start to find small notes tucked in between or on the wrappers, many times the notes were asking the children to come and play. The notes were also signed by “The Candy Lady.”

Over a long span of about a decade, a handful of kids went missing. And as some od the children who received sweets/candy in the past got a little older they started to tell people and also there parents that they had eaten candy left on their window sills from a “Candy Lady.”

According to this particular urban legend, it's not the only strange thing that had happened to this small county other strange things had happened around this area that spooked alot of the residents to the point they moved elsewhere.
One of threads strange events was a local farmer found the rotten teeth of a child in a candy wrapper at the edge of one of his fields. A police deputy started investigating the disappearance of the children and a few weeks later they found his dead body in a ditch. His eyes were stabbed with a fork and his pockets were filled with candy.
In a way this urban legend almost remind me of the story hazel and Gretel except without witches.
How because of this urban legend and there belief this candy lady was real at Any time a kid goes missing, all the locals say The Candy Lady got them. Children believe that she takes them somewhere and pulls out their teeth or stabs them with a fork. Morbid right. No candy houses no witches so  how does this urban still stand today? Very interesting.

More information on the "Candy Lady"

Clara Crane 1871 - ?

Clara Crane was born in 1871 in Texas. She married an older man and they had one child, Marcella. In 1893, her daughter was killed in a farming accident and it was noted that her husband Leonard was an alcoholic and had been drinking on the same night there daughter died in the terrible accident. Clara was devastated to loose her only daughter and became withdrawn and despondent to everyone and anyone who trued to approach her.

In 1895, it has been reported that Clara killed her husband Leonard with poisoned candy/sweet (this is where the belief the urban legend started) she blamed him greatly for her daughter’s death as he was not paying attention to what she was doing right before the accident. She was tried and convicted for murder but plead insanity/grief. She was put in the North Texas Lunatic Asylum.

Someone during the year 1896, a Doctor noted that one of the staff found a doll that Clara had made from torn sheets from her bed and curtains hidden in her room. Other patients from the asylum told the staff that she would talk and sing to it at night.

At some point during 1898 she was released from the hospital  due to overcrowding. She was charming and soft-spoken so even though she had committed murder she was considered a good candidate for release. There was no after care in those days so no one really knows where she ended up because no one checked on her which makes this urban legends even more credible due to the fact no one knows where she was...

A couple of years after she had left the hospital, children near her home town started going missing.  This is where her story seems to link into this "candy lady" urban legend.

Now this is the part of the story which is dinar however not exactly the same, the local authority started to investigate. Around this time several human teeth (not specifically children's) were found by a farmer in his fields and the sheriff was found dead with forks in his eyes and candy in his pocket (again not the children it was an adult). Everyone knew the Candy Lady was responsible.

The tale of the Candy Lady rose from some of the stores above. Older people in some areas of Texas remember the story very well due to the fact they grew up being told it over and over again. Now a days the story seems to pop up now and again it seems whenever this story/urban legend does come up it usually is fairly localized to Texas however looking into this urban legend closer there are other people who have told this story around the US.

What do you think? Do you think the candy lady is real? Or do you think it could have been someone playing on the Clara's tragic story?