‘They put handcuffs on my ability to be a giving person.’

It was about 9 p.m. that Halloween night six years ago when the doorbell rang at Joyce Appel’s home in Granada Hills.

It seemed a little late for trick-or-treaters, but she headed to the door once more, ready to hand out some more of her home-baked cookies.

Instead of children, she was met by two uniformed Los Angeles police officers, men who told her she was suspected of giving away cookies with razor blades in them.

Arrested, strip-searched and booked on suspicion of child endangerment, Appel, now 58, says that despite the fact that police soon admitted privately that they thought she was innocent, and no charges were ever filed against her, the nightmare continued.

“There were death threats on the phone,” she said last week. “Car windows smashed. Bullet holes in the bedroom windows. Filthy things written on the car. . . . It’s cost me six years of abuse, six years of my life.”

The case had come to police attention after two neighboring families, the Smiths and the Butterworths, complained that they had found razor blades in cookies.

In their investigation, officers went to the home of Clyde Smith--father of one of the boys said to have been given a sabotaged cookie--and found a razor blade there that matched the one supposedly found in the cookie.

Appel’s attorney, Richard J. Abrams, says that detectives’ reports show that Clyde Smith told police he and his brother, Wayne, had argued over whether such things were found in Halloween treats and Wayne told him a few minutes later he had found the blade in one of the cookies. Clyde Smith said he thought Wayne might have placed the blade in the cookie to bolster his argument.

Police also went to the home of Sandra and Timothy Butterworth, where they found a blade matching the one Sandra Butterworth said she had found in a cookie in front of the Appel home.

While the Butterworths have declined comment about the matter, Wayne Smith has denied placing a razor blade in any cookie. Because of insufficient evidence, police say, no charges were ever filed against any of the Smiths or the Butterworths.

Appel and her husband, Marshall, saying they were wrongfully “held up as public targets for scorn and ridicule” because of the unfounded allegations against them, sued both families and also filed suit against the City of Los Angeles, charging that police mishandled the case.

Earlier this year, insurance carriers representing the Smiths and Butterworths agreed to out-of-court settlements that totaled more than $100,000. The City of Los Angeles settled for $9,000.

“Of course there’s some relief that it’s over,” Appel said last week. “But it’s never truly over . . . .

“Do you know what the worst part was?” she had asked six years ago.

“It wasn’t the arrest. It wasn’t the incarceration. It wasn’t the grief.

“The worst part was that they put handcuffs on my ability to be a giving person.”