San Jose police said on Friday they have traced a human finger that a woman claimed to have found in a bowl of Wendy’s fast-food chilli to a friend of the woman’s husband.
Anna Ayala was arrested last month on charges of grand theft and attempted grand theft after police came to suspect that she had planted the offending digit herself.
The charges were linked to sales losses estimated at more than $2,5-million suffered by Wendy’s, the third-largest United States burger chain, because of the blaze of publicity that followed Ayala’s initial claim.
Briefing reporters on Friday, San Jose police Chief Rob Davis said further investigations have uncovered evidence that might point the finger at a conspiracy extending beyond Ayala alone.
“The jig is up,” Davis said, explaining that tests have confirmed a tip detectives received that the finger belonged to a man who had lost it in an industrial accident in December.
The man, who was not identified, was an associate of Ayala’s husband, Jaime Plascencia, who had provided him with the digit, Davis said.
Wendy’s had offered a $100 000 reward and set up a tip hotline for anyone with information about the finger.
At one point, a woman who keeps wild animals had called police saying that the finger was hers and that it had been ripped off in a leopard attack.
At the time of her initial complaint, Ayala (39) had told police she was so sickened when she bit into the severed finger in her meal on March 22 that she immediately began vomiting.
After tests showed no evidence that the finger specimen had come from the production, transportation or preparation of the Wendy’s chilli, the investigation started to focus on Ayala.
Police documents showed she had sued a number of corporations in the past, sometimes settling the cases out of court in return for a financial payout.
The case has garnered a lot of tongue-in-cheek media coverage, but Davis on Friday stressed that it is no laughing matter.
“This is a case that has truly victimised a lot of people here in San Jose and elsewhere,” he said.
“They victimised the corporation and they victimised the people who live in San Jose who lost job hours as a result of what happened,” he said, adding that police will pursue all those who may have been involved in the “charade”. — AFP