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Evilstick

When Nicole Allen bought a gift for her 2-year-old daughter the week after Halloween at a dollar store in Dayton, Ohio in 2014, there was little indication Allen should have inspected it prior to letting her child play with it. The toy was a princess wand topped with flower petals, with a cardboard package that featured a smiling female heroine and a suggestion that it was suitable for ages 3 and up. The back of the package promised buyers that the toy "Can Send Out Wonderful Music." It appeared to be little more than a cheap trinket—the kind customers passing through a discount store might glimpse and toss into their cart without much thought.

Allen didn't notice that the toy's playful graphics obscured a somewhat malevolent name. At the top, in a juvenile font, was the official name of the product: 'Evilstick'.

It wasn't until Allen got home that she found out why.

Instead of playing "beautiful music," pushing a button on the wand's handle activated a maniacal laugh—one made all the more disturbing by the product's cheap, tinny speaker. Pressing the button also made the toy's flower top light up, illuminating a piece of foil that was made transparent to reveal a horrifying image of a woman with pupil-less eyes miming the act of slitting her wrists.

The image would be alarming regardless of context. Stuck in a child's toy and coupled with a light and sound show, it seemed like a cruel prank. Allen's subsequent complaint made local news before going viral.

Four years later, the questions remain. Who made it? Was this macabre toy an accident of negligent bootleg manufacturing, or was it something more sinister? And why did an amateur sleuth close to uncovering its origins suddenly disappear from view?

For years, discount retailers have stocked inventory shelves with goods manufactured in China. The country's notoriously economical labor costs can undercut most other wholesale suppliers, particularly when low prices are paramount.

But that tidal wave of product has a key and chaotic consequence: a lack of quality control. It's virtually impossible for U.S. customs officials to inspect containers and single out counterfeit goods or items that infringe on a company's intellectual property, leading to a significant problem with knockoff merchandise. Earlier this year, MGA, maker of the successful L.O.L. Surprise! dolls filed suit against distributors of lookalike toys that were being sold for a lower price. It's an uphill battle—with a Byzantine supply system, locating companies and pursuing legal remedies across countries and continents is a costly and frustrating process. While MGA has successfully held 81 dealers responsible for the fake dolls, dozens more continue to proliferate.

It's this complex artery of distribution that presumably allowed Dayton Dollar Store owner Amar Moustafa to purchase a supply of princess wands dubbed Evilsticks in 2012. The "princess" appearing on the package was a character named Sakura Kinomoto, star of the late '90s animated series Cardcaptor Sakura and a popular manga protagonist in Japan. In a nod to Pokemon, fourth-grader Sakura has to retrieve a series of magical cards she accidentally unleashed on the world. While she didn't wield a wand on the show, the package illustration had been altered so that she was holding one like it.

Speaking to news outlet WHIO in Dayton, Moustafa said he had been at a retailer's convention when he made the deal for the inventory and that he didn't recall who sold him the wands. They apparently remained in the store unnoticed until 2014, when Nicole Allen contacted WHIO to report her daughter had been troubled by the image hidden behind the foil wrap. For his part, Moustafa pointed out to WHIO that the "name on it was Evilstick," and that should have been a tip-off. Allen argued the toy was placed on a rack adjacent to Barbie knockoffs and other kids' items.

Matt Clark, a freelance writer and Dayton resident, didn't quite buy Moustafa's explanation either. Clark caught mention of the Evilstick via WHIO's coverage and decided to see it for himself. "I knew where the Dollar Store was and basically made up my mind to go try to get one," he tells Mental Floss.