January 10, 2019 • 44 mins
In 2005 a woman named Anna Alaya discovered a length of human finger – nail and all – in her Wendy’s chili. Her cries of disgust would set off a media firestorm, a criminal investigation and a prison sentence for her and her husband.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from how Stuff Works
dot Com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and there's Jerry and
this is the Stuff you Should Know Chili Caper Edition
Corporate Investigations, Las Vegas, saying Jose Chili Yeah, and that
(00:27):
means we get to use our special investigator nicknames Seattle Clark, Portland,
Bryant and San Francisco Jerry Rowland. That's not bad. I
would have chosen Tawny kitay In for me. Yeah. That
was a very ham fisted way to set up an
in show mention of our three shows next week. Oh yeah, next,
(00:48):
it's actually lost on me, Chuck next Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.
It's apparently lost on the Pacific Northwest because no one's
coming next Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. We will be in Seattle,
Portland and in Francisco on January sixteen and seventeen at
the More Theater, Revolution Hall and the Castro for Sketch Fest.
And uh, you have a Into the World live Friday
(01:10):
night in San Francisco, and I have a movie Crush
live on Saturday afternoon in San Francisco. I also have
a Brooklyn End of the World one two on the
twenty four, just f y. I. Hey, let's not get
carried away here, all right, But those are the shows
we have coming up everyone, so uh, come on out.
There's still great tickets left at all three of these venues,
(01:31):
uh and all five probably I don't I'm not sold
out for movie crushing so uh and especially those uh
into the world of movie crush shows your best chance
to hang out and talk to us personally, because they
are more intimate venues, like I wear a neglige Well,
Busy Phillips is there, so I'm gonna have on my
my dinner jacket. Oh very nice, trying to impress her
(01:53):
with my tuxedo, which is not impressive. Tuxedo and jeans
is a it's a it's a look. So get all
the information at s Y s k live dot com
or for the sketch Fest shows. Just go to the
s F Sketch Fest site and come out and support
us everyone and shake our hand, pat us on the back,
or spit on our shoes. Don't do that. Don't do that,
(02:17):
spit between our shoes. Just make it close. You know,
if you really hate us spit between our shoes. There
you go, that's gonna end up on a T shirt.
I have a feeling. All right, let's talk about chili fingers,
all right. So, um back in two thousand five. Actually
it's getting the way back machine. Go watch this thing,
go down way back machine just for this short distance. Yeah,
(02:39):
I mean, it's not like we can walk to two
thousand five. This is actually kind of great, though, because
when you're forty eight, almost to go back thirteen years,
I want to go back and do it all over.
So all of a sudden, I'm thirty five, which I
(03:01):
thought was old. Yeah, but man, I'd love to be
thirty five right now. I'm pretty happy with forty two.
I've got to say, I'm not quite I'm not quite
happy with the kind of catchers mit that my face
is turning into. But everything else I'm pretty glad about. Yeah.
Just wait, just wait, Okay, you're staring down the barrel
(03:23):
of fifty and you're going, geez, I only got like
fifteen more good years left. That's so not true. Don't
you know? Fifties the new thirty five? Is it? Do
you know what's funny is all the people in this
Windy's in San Jose. We just showed up at her.
Looking at it's like, what are these guys talking about?
I know they're like, get your superbar order underway. Yeah,
(03:44):
they're like, why don't you guys just be quiet and
listen to chumbawamba like everybody else's right now. I don't
think they had superbar in two thousand five. That was
more like the eighties and nineties. But still, what was it? Superbar? Yeah,
don't you don't remember that? No, Windy's in the eighties.
Oh yeah, the superbar, which was this weird combination of
tacos and pasta and salad and baked potatoes and baked
(04:06):
potatoes all just like whatever you want. I forgot all
about that, man, what a good idea. Yeah, the superbar
was a weird, weird thing, but I ate it. So
there is no superbar anymore. But there is. If you
look over, there's a woman named Anna or Anna Ayala,
and she is sitting with her in laws, her her
(04:26):
mother in law, her father in law, a brother in law,
maybe a couple other people, um, and she is about
to bite down into a bite of Wendy's chili that
she has just ordered at the San Jose Um Wendy's
downtown San Jose. Wendy's I believe March two, two thousand five. Yeah,
she's in her her late thirties. It's cold in San Jose.
(04:51):
She's from Las Vegas, so she's not used to this.
She's actually so she's from San Jose originally, but she's
moved to Vegas a couple of years ago. For she
has lived in Law Vegas lately and has been warming
in the sun there, and uh, it's like, I don't
like this cold. I'm gonna order some chili because Wendy's
chili is so so good. It's meaty and warm as
(05:11):
it puts it. That's right. And so she sits down,
she's eating this thing, and then all of a sudden,
look at her. She's just she's she's upset, Josh, she's
gone berserk. Everybody at the tables get their hands up,
like WHOA settled down, and she's like just pointed at
her chili, her chili cup, which she's reached the bottom of,
(05:33):
and she's saying that there's a finger in her chili
because she's just bit into a finger. Yeah, she looks
like she's about to puke. Um. I didn't see her vomit.
I didn't either, but in court later she would say
she did, so maybe we can be key witnesses. Right,
she's going up to the counter demanding I think she
(05:54):
just said to one of the cashiers, who did you
kill to get this finger? Which is a weird thing
to say. Yeah, she's yelling. Then everyone else in the
restaurant with chili saying, don't eat that fingers. That's finger chili.
That's right, finger chili no one wants. She's starting to
try to start a chant, I believe. And there's only
one guy that's still eating. And he said, yeah, I
ordered the finger chili, right, He said, I think you
(06:16):
got mine. So she's freaking out. Things are starting to
go down. There's a hubbub in the restaurant. Everyone's got
every She has everyone's attention. She's saying that she just
found a finger in her chili. The people at the
counter are incredulous. They're kind of poking at it a
little bit. They're saying, I think it's a vegetable or whatever.
It looks like a carrot to me, lady, right, A
very pale carrot with a fingernail on it, and it's
(06:38):
the fingernail really that does the trick. After this point,
it becomes clear to everyone in the Wendy's that there
is a finger that this woman just found in her chili.
There's a fingernail on it. It's about an inch and
a half of a finger from the tip to well
about an inch and a half down and she just
bit down on it and she found it in her chili.
So the Wendy's employees reacts with they dump out all
(07:01):
the chili, they call, they call the police. The police
come by and they say, well, this is a health
department kind of thing, really, And the police leave, and
the Wendy's employees called the owners of the franchise, J. E. M. Management,
and they say, don't do anything that finger. Put it
in the freezer and we'll be there in the morning.
(07:21):
And at this point, Anna Leah leaves or Anna Ayala.
This is going to be very difficult, because I want
to say Elia, she leaves, Her families are taking her
family members are taking pictures of the location, and a
huge national story has just begun. By ten o'clock that night.
This happened about seven. By ten o'clock on the local news,
(07:42):
there's an unconfirmed report of a woman who found a
finger in her chili at Wendy's, and Dave Thomas gets
indigestion immediately. Well, he'd been dead a few years, so
that'd be phenomenal. I thought he was alive. Then he
died in two thousand two. Okay, Well he's rolling over
in his grave. But by this time, you know, he'd
really kind of made Wendy's like a really loved and respected,
(08:05):
you know, restaurant, because everybody thought Dave Thomas was so great. Well, yeah,
and as are we out of the way back machine?
Are we done? Play acting? I was serious, but yes
we are. Well you were seriously play acting. You were
Laurence Olivier. Maybe I was delusional. I thought we were
in that one. Okay, so uh immediate, almost immediately, words
(08:29):
starts to spread on the news. Obviously, and as you
might well imagine the Windy's restaurant chain, especially in the
in the area in the Bay area near San Jose, um,
it really starts to take a business hit. As you
would imagine, people are not like, oh, they found a
(08:49):
finger in some Wendy's chili. That really reminds me how
much I love Wendy's chili, Right, let's go out and
get a hot cup, because they are sort of famous
for their chili. Oh yeah. I mean, like, if you
want chili at a fast food restaurant, you're going to
Wendy's because you're not gonna find it anywhere else. They
really planted their flag on the chili market. Yeah, the
old an W's had pretty good chili. Oh yeah, but
(09:12):
you wanted that on a dog. Sure. And and of
course the Midwest still very famous for their skyline chili,
which is delicious. Is that I guess i'd be fast food?
Huh yeah, I think they actually have skyline chili restaurants. Yeah, yeah,
which is good. It's quite good. It is. Um. But
if you're going to go just about anywhere in the
(09:34):
US you have a hankering for chili, you're gonna go
to Wendy's. But, like you said, sales started to plummet,
and not just like chili sales, all wendy sales started
to take it hit, especially in the Bay Area, like
you said, especially in in the Western United States. People
were just kind of grossed out by this whole idea. Um.
But like I said, the the the cops had shown
(09:55):
up and decided it was a health inspectors or a
health departments jam. They didn't really have anything to do
with it. So the next morning, uh, the owners of
the franchise, the county health inspector, they showed up, I
think they contacted Wendy's communications department, and the gears were
starting to move. There was something that they had to
(10:16):
deal with, and that was basically threefold. It was really
twofold as far as Wendy's was concerned at first, but
the third one crept in pretty quickly. Whose finger was this?
How did the finger get into the chili? And then
after that who was this woman who who found the
finger in her chili? And so Wendy's really started to
(10:39):
focus on the first two because um one thing that
this whole the way that this whole thing played out,
the cops were very hands off at first. They felt
this was a health department issue, a public health issue,
and not a police issue, and basically said you need
to go figure this out yourself Wendy's and so Wendy's
had to do a lot of extra leg work that
(11:01):
they probably wouldn't have had to do had the cops
decided immediately that it was a criminal issue. But in
the cops defense, it didn't appear immediately to be a
criminal issue. It appeared to be like a woman found
a finger in her chili at Wendy's and that's gross,
so go figure it out Wendy's. Yeah. I also bet
there was like one guy who literally ate went to
(11:21):
that specific Wendy's to get chili the next day and
was like, dude, that's the last place you're going to
find a finger in your chili. Now, there's no way
it would happen again. What are the chances. Yeah, like
flying on an airline right after they have a crash.
He's like, you go to Burger King, you're gonna get
a finger. They're gonna purposely give you a finger. Man,
don't be naive. Al Right, So did you introduce police
(11:44):
Chief Rob Davis? Yet? Not yet? All right, So this
is the guy San Jose police chief that would ultimately
lead this investigation later on, though after Wendy's did a
lot of the initial legwork for him. Yes, he would
lead the investigation, and he uh he. Basically it was like,
I gotta find out who this lady is because Wendy's
(12:07):
they're operating on the downlow here. Uh. And this this
is a sort of a and apparently this is this
case is taught in classes now about like how to
handle a crisis as a corporation. Yeah, I've seen I've
seen it criticized. I've also seen it held up as
a as an example of what to do too well.
I mean, here's what Wendy's can and can't do. What
(12:28):
they can do is quietly throw a lot of money
at this investigation on their own, uh, and then publicly.
What they can't do is is start to go after
this lady and be too sort of um dismissive of
this finger like there's no way, lady, this lady's nuts,
she's whatever, she's after money, Like, you can't do that
(12:50):
as a public facing company. You have to be doing
all your due diligence sort of quietly. And they really were,
They really were. So how how about this, dude, Let's
take a break and then we'll come back and we'll
talk about the investigation that Wendy started. How about that? Chuck? Alright, Chuck, So,
(13:32):
like you said, Wendy's can't just be like that lady's
a liar. There's no way, that's our finger. Um. They
had to basically operate in the background. They couldn't appear
like they were obstructing the police investigation. They couldn't appear
like they were smearing uh Anna ayala, especially because the
early reports were very sympathetic to this woman too. Everybody's
very grossed out by this sure. Um. But at the
(13:55):
same time, they had they had to deal with this issue,
and they had to get to the bottom of whose
finger was and where the finger came from. Yeah, And
so the obvious first place to start is the restaurant itself. Uh,
the employees there. The very obvious first place to start
is to see if anyone was missing a finger. And
that's what they did. They said, show us your hands. Yeah,
(14:16):
everyone looked at the everyone's fingers. They were all there,
and they went all right, so far, so good. Uh.
They would eventually put everyone on staff through a polygraph
test um, which they all passed. Uh. They would obviously
then they would go to up the supply chain to
see if this thing might have because you know, these
things happen, um, yeah, rarely they do. Though. Well, I
(14:39):
found five other cases of fingers in fast food that
were that were legitimate. Oh yeah, so it happens up
to supply chain. You know, there can be an industrial
accident that leaves a finger in a bag of lettuce,
greens or something, and that might eventually find its way
to a Windy's superbar. Oh my god, you know, doesn't
(15:00):
have been much. I don't I wouldn't be too freaked out.
I'm still freaked out. Well, we'll go over those at
the end. But they're going up the supply chain. They're
really doing their due diligence. They can't find. They offer
a reward at first of fifty grand, later a hundred grand. Well,
they set up yeah hotline for tips. But they're they're basically,
(15:22):
as time is going on, becoming more and more confident
that they did not have a finger in that chili,
right by their own fault. They traced the chili ingredients
to seven different suppliers, and they got documentation from all
seven suppliers that nobody at their companies had suffered any
kind of finger injury at any any recent time. And also,
(15:44):
like you said, doing at the store, doing at any
of the nearby stores had suffered any finger injury, let
alone in amputation. Um. And so Wendy's was like, this,
this didn't come from us, This didn't come from inside
our store. Um. And they also they kind of ran
a simultaneous forensic investigation as well. They hired a woman
(16:04):
named Dr Lynn Bates who's the CEO of a company
called Alteca out of Manhattan, Kansas. And if you are
looking for um evidence or study of a body part
that was found in food, you go to Dr Lynn S.
Bates and Alteca because they are they engage in forensic
food microscopy. That's what they do, is there. That's their
(16:27):
bread and butter is fine. Is is studying body parts
found in food, and she's been doing it since nineteen six.
So Wendy's went to her and said, here is a
piece of this finger. Was this finger cooked in this chili?
Whose finger is it? She's like, I can't tell you
whose finger it is, but I can't tell you that
there is no indication that this finger was cooked for
(16:48):
three hours in chili at a hundred and seventy degrees.
It just wasn't. So that was a that combined with
the the Wendy's No Wendy's employer or suppliers employers missing
a finger that told Wendy's everything they need to know
that they were being defrauded. Yeah, and you would think,
just grab a fingerprint, police force. Uh, And then they
(17:09):
weren't able to. They weren't able to. They said, if
they have found a hand, that they might could literally
look and compare fingerprints, but they they didn't get a
good enough print off it to uh to do a
legitimate database search, right right, They just had to sit
around and wait for that hand to show up. Because
that thing had been cooking in chili for three hours.
(17:30):
It had not been cooked in chili for three hours
at any rate. Um, So Wendy's knew what was going on.
Now they had to go to the cops and say,
we're being defrauded. Not only did they have the search
for the missing finger investigation internally, and they hired Lynn
Bates to to do forensic work on the finger itself,
(17:52):
they also hired a detective to start looking around it
Anna Ayala, and the detective turned up some very interesting
stuff about her. Yeah, he was like, wait a minute,
this woman has filed at least thirteen civil lawsuits, some
against major corporations, and they he probably could have stopped
there and Wendy's would have just been like Dave Thomas
(18:15):
from the grave would have said, see there, she's no good.
That's a that's a good Dave Thomas. So that I
think he would have said, like she should still get
the benefit of the doubt. I don't know, man, when
you've when someone is this uh as a pattern of
litigious behaviors like this, Well maybe he finished with proved
(18:35):
me wrong one. There were a couple of notable ones.
Um that it's it's sort of uh, frustratingly hard to
find information. Um. She claimed that she won a thirty
thousand dollar settlement from Elpolo Loco from medical bills from
her daughter getting sick from salmonella. Elpolio Loco has always
been on record saying never happened. We did not give
(18:57):
that lady a dime GM. She sued GM because the
front wheel of her her car came off and there
was an accident, and uh, that suit was dismissed with
prejudice when she fired her lawyer was a no show
in court. Oh is that what that means? No? No,
no with prejudice means you can't bring it back. Okay,
(19:20):
so you can't. She can't say well, like, well, I
didn't show up and my lawyer was bad, so let's
do this again. Okay, I got you. So basically it
was dead in the water. So she sued a former
employer for her sexual harassment. I'm not even gonna comment
on that one because I have no idea that could
very well have been legitimate if that one struck me
as possibly legitimate. But she dropped it right. She lawyered
(19:44):
up immediately with the chilly finger, and everything made Chief
Rob Davis very suspicious. Uh. And then this this guy
that lived with her family named Ken Bono or Bano.
What did you say? No, I've been saying. Bono hasn't
even occurred to me. It could be Bono related to
(20:05):
Bono Kim Bono. Because the cops are starting to ask
questions at this point, they do official investigations, they search
her house. She claims that they held a gun to
her head, ransacked her home, and like abused her daughter. Yeah,
it's quite a charge for a finger chili house investigation.
There's a picture of her and her daughter in the
(20:27):
driveway talking to a reporter and her daughter's got like
her arm in a sling, but like the kind of
sling you just go by at the at the drug store.
So this was a guy who lived Bono, lived with
their family, and when he's being investigated by the cops, uh,
he said that this finger came from our aunt. Are
(20:48):
are deceased aunt. It's her finger, all right, which is
a weird thing to say, especially because Anna I alas
said all of my ants are alive. I don't know
what this guy's talking about, even though he lives in
my house. Yeah, what was was he trying to get money?
I don't know what. I can't figure out. I couldn't
find much on that guy. Um, I don't know what
(21:09):
the deal was. I also just saw references to a
rumor that the media had been reporting on that it
was her dead aunt's finger. So, um, I didn't see
how it came from him or what he was trying
to do with that. But that's that was the thing.
But that was just kind of like a little side
thread that I think also made the cops a little
more suspicious to like, that's just a weird thing to say,
(21:30):
even jokingly. Yeah, but they did actually get While it
didn't lead to the who finger it was, that tipline
did yield some stuff at first. Right. So yeah, So,
like you said, Wendy set up a tipline, a hotline
that you could call in, and what they were looking
for specifically ostensibly was whose finger it was. That's what
they wanted information the owner of the finger. UM. But
(21:50):
they were taking any and all tips that people called in,
and they started offering fifty grand like you said, they
later up to to a hundred grand um and it
started to yield some tips, like pretty pretty much off
the bat. I think the San Jose Police and Wendy's
is funneling this information to the cops um as it
comes in, like as good tips come in. UM. But
(22:12):
two very early on came in from what the San
Jose Police said. There were two different people who supposedly
did not know each other, who told very similar stories
about how Anna Iala had told them that she was
fleecing Wendy's, that all of this was just a fraud
for money to extort money from Wendy's in a lawsuit.
(22:32):
So that that combined with all the evidence that Wendy's
had gathered that it the finger had not come from
inside their store, UM, all of the Anna i Alla's background, uh,
all of that put together really turned the tide not
just on a police investigation, but also on the media
(22:52):
against Anna Iala. And she had started this, she had
created a huge media circus around the issue, Like she
went on Good Morning America and I could not find
I think Good Morning America just took the video down.
He probably just burned it because she just went on
and lied, lied, lied her through her teeth about what
(23:16):
had happened, and just pointed at Wendy's and said, like,
these guys screwed up, and this is the most disgusting
thing that could happen to somebody, And I'm torn up
inside about it, and they should pay on on national
news about a week after the incident. Yeah, So, like
you said, this is all playing out pretty quickly. It's
(23:38):
all over the news, it's all over late night talk
show comedy. Uh, just bad joke after bad joke coming
out of Jay Leno's mouth. I won't even repeat the
one that ed included. I like the Letterman, when did
you see Letterman's said that she'd been spotted going back
at Wendy's in ordering chili again because she was going
back to collect all five. That's good. You gotta give
(24:00):
it up for letting me what what was Leno's something
about him? They don't. The chili now comes with fingernail
clippers beside the fingernail clippers, and that really just encapsulate,
encapsulates the difference between those two men. It does, although
they have their joke writers, but still the love of cars,
I think is also a big differentiator. I don't think
(24:20):
Letterman really cares about cars. Shout out to Brian Kylie
and Rob Kuttner. Shout out to the mid nineties Letterman
Book of Top ten Lists that helped shape me as
a human being. Brian and Rob are Conan O'Brien's monologue
joke writers and have been for many, many years. Did
I tell you you mean? And I went to see
Conan O'Brien live with Ron Funches and a couple of
(24:42):
other people. Yea, do some standards. It was so good
and we actually turned out we were staying. We were
sitting next to a member of the s Y S
k Army throughout the show. Oh no way. Yeah. He
was like are you Josh and you me? We were
like yeah, he was a good good guy, good kid.
You mean He's like, i'mum, but that's not Josh. Right,
He's like, well that's weird. I'm suspicious now, um, all right,
(25:04):
where were we? All right, it's all over the news.
This is all playing out very fast. But the the
drag net is sort of closing in um thanks to
Wendy's investigations, thanks to the cops getting involved, and uh,
miss Ayala is starting to feel the heat and like
anyone who and I think the cats out of the
bag now right. I think it was put the finger
(25:27):
in the chili. Yeah, anytime someone does something like that,
it seems like two things happened. They bragged to their
friends because they're dummies to begin with, and then that
net starts to close and it all starts to fall apart. Right.
So her response, and this is a pretty human response,
she basically said, once the media spotlight went from sympathetic
(25:48):
to her to wait a minute, who are you again?
And how do you explain this thing and that thing
and all this, she she was like never mind. Yeah,
that's basically what she said. She said, You know, I
can't handle this media spot eight or anything anymore. So
I'm just gonna drop my lawsuit against Wendy's. We'll just
forget all about this, and Wendy said, no, we're not
going to just forget all about this. No, let's take
(26:11):
a break, shall we. We're going to take a break, chuck. So,
(26:43):
I can't surely when Anna Iala was like, Okay, I'm
just gonna drop the lawsuit and this will go away,
there had to only have been maybe one and a
quarter percent of her brain that thought that that was
actually going to work, that was actually gonna go away.
She seems like street wise and savvy enough to me
that that she knew it probably wasn't just going to
(27:06):
go away, that that was nothing but hope, right, I
guess I'm curious about that. Uh yeah, I don't know, man,
But like the more that they poke into her private life.
Then you learned that she and her husband James uh
Placincia had uh there was a and this one's hard
to get information on. Two. From what I can tell
(27:28):
is they sold a trailer trailer park trailer that did
not belong to them, Yes, for eleven thousand dollars. She
did specifically, I don't know that he was involved. He
may have even owned the trailer, but regardless, she did
not own the trailers sold it to a woman for
eleven thousand dollars, and later on the woman and her
(27:50):
children were evicted um from the trailer that they thought
they owned that they didn't own. Yes, they also learned
that her husband, I guess from her previous marriage, owed
a lot of money and child support, and so things
are starting to fall into place to where they're like,
this lady is always making up stories, ensuing companies, she's
(28:12):
always looking for that get rich angle. Her husband owes
a ton of money, and so this is all sorting.
They're starting to uh finger her if you will, for
this crime. It's the worst pun ever we met. We all,
I thought we were going to make it through this,
but now I've even been saying tipline about it. But okay,
(28:37):
all right, it's done. It's out there. So they finally, uh,
like you said, even though she was like, oh well,
let's just forget about it, They're like, no, no no, no,
we can't do that. Uh. And then there enters a
lady that just kind of and it didn't end up
having the hugest impact on the case itself, but it
is worth mentioning this woman named Sandy Almond. Uh, this
is a little strange. So this is a woman who
(28:58):
owned uh exotic cats, big cats, leopards, jaguars, tigers. I
think is that how we're saying jaguars now jaguar? Yeah? Yeah,
tell that, Britt says it on the commercial. Is it
the year in sales of m up in here, Yeah,
the Jaguar X twelve. So this lady elms, they's big cats. Um.
(29:23):
This is uh not too far from Vegas where she
lives in parump Nevada, I guess, or is it California
on the California side? You know, I think it's Nevada. Okay,
I don't know actually know that you mentioned it. Uh.
And she eventually, I guess, has to get rid of
these cats and calls in a rescue group that does
things like this. They're like, we're a wild animal orphanage
and you're a dumb dumb who bought all these animals
(29:43):
you shouldn't have had, so now we will deal with it.
And during this transfer of animals, she's attacked by a
spotted leopard and it bites off her finger. Yes, and
she says, she comes forward and says, I think that
is my finger. No, No, I think actually A person
who is at the wildlife rescue at the time, was
(30:04):
the one who called the tip line with that one, Oh,
I thought, because she wanted to take a DNA test
and everything. Oh I didn't see that. Okay, alright, cool.
So she's the one who called and said that's my finger.
Well she wanted I don't know if she literally picked
up the phone and called, but she got involved such
that she wanted to take a DNA test to find
out if that was her finger, gotcha? Okay? Cool? Cool? Well, yeah,
(30:24):
because she had said that the last time she'd seen
it it was on ice in the emergency room. So
I guess she wasn't the sentimental type who's like, I
want my finger back, would you? Oh yeah, floated from aldehyde.
You me would probably have the thing gilded and wear
it around her neck. Uh yeah, I'd be like, that's
my finger on yous neck, check it out. Um. But
(30:46):
so the the whole thing was just a red herring
though a blind alley right like it it went nowhere. No,
it was not her finger. No. Um. There were some
other tips that came in about the finger. Um. There
the Mexican can authorities, I guess just over the border
got involved because it was rumored that a an incident
with a ranch hand losing a finger in Mexico had
(31:10):
been the source of the finger um as, even as
Anna Ayala, who, by the way, that whole tip about
the trailer um sale, the trailer scam that came in
from Wendy's hotline as well. By this time, I believe
it was day uh twenty two. No, I'm sorry, it
(31:31):
was day thirty thirty two. I believe about a month
after the incident originally happened. Anna Ayala and Jamie Palencia Plasencia,
her husband, we're both arrested in Las Vegas, him for
the child support payments, failure to pay child support, her
for that trailer scam. And so while they're on ice
(31:53):
in Las Vegas, Wendy's is still conducting this investigation. San
Jose are still conducting this investigation, and and they've got them,
they have them on this other stuff. But I guess
they just kind of kept them from running and that's
why they arrested him, uh, knowing that they were eventually
going to build the case. I'm not sure, but that's
exactly what happened, because I think about fifty two days
(32:14):
after she walked into that Wendy's and put the finger
in the chili and took that bite. Um. They they
charged them for grand theft, for basically defrauding Windy's. Yeah,
and at this point, as far as the police we
were concerned, They're like, we don't even need to know
whose finger this is at this point, right, like that
that's really immaterial. But Wendy's they still have a public
(32:37):
relations crisis going on, and they're like, we really would
like to find out where this finger came from, just
so like as many facts out there as possible will
really help us restore our good name if we can
actually pinpoint whose finger this is and exactly how this
happened and let everybody know what what went on. Yeah,
(32:57):
so they they actually that's when they up the um
the reward from fifty thousand to a hundred thousand, right,
and that's when they hit the jackpot, which is ironically,
they got two callers on the hundred thousand dollar line
head color you're on the dollar, and then for the
(33:18):
next thirty seconds like hello, am I am I on?
Can you hear me? Yes, you're on, You're on in
my life right now? They called the two people called
one to this day, as far as I can Tell
has remained anonymous. The other one was a guy named
Mike Casey, and Mike Casey owned a company called Lamb
(33:38):
Asphalt out of Las Vegas, Nevada, and he happened to
be the employer of Jamie Plasencia. And he said, it's
weird because you arrested one of my employees, one of
my longtime employees, um for this scam. And I also
have another employee named Brian Rossiter who lost a finger
(33:59):
not too long ago, and I think they might be connected.
I think that might be Brian Rossiter's finger. And that's
how the whole thing finally came crashing down because they
got ahold of Brian Rossiter. They gotta They gave him
a DNA test. They matched it to the DNA taken
from the finger, and they said it's Brian Rossiter's finger.
Brian Rossiter worked with Jamie Plasencia. Jamie Plasencia was married
(34:24):
to Anna Iala. Anna Iala found a finger in her
Chili ipso facto, something's rotten in Denmark and that's how
it stands. Yeah, And it's even a little weirder when
you find out the details. So Brian is at work
someone slams the tailgate of the truck on his hand,
cuts an inch and a half off of his finger.
Can you imagine, dude, no, uh, cuts off his finger.
(34:50):
And it's funny too because Ed points out, instead of
like driving to the hospital, which is what any normal
person would have done, he had owed Placentia some money placentia.
And this is a man, a husband of a woman
who it seems like they're both always looking to scam somebody,
and they're looking for the angle. He sees this finger
(35:12):
and he goes, hey, you owe me money. Some people
say it was fifty bucks. We don't know for sure.
I saw a hundred almost everywhere. Okay, so let's say
it's a hundred. He's like, you give me that that finger,
and we'll just call it square. And not only that,
my friend, but if you ever hear about this finger
in the news, keep it quiet, and I will give
(35:33):
you a quarter of a million dollars at some point
in the future. That's what they call the carrot and
the other carrot. Yeah, so he said, just drip some
blood on this roof shingle, and that will be our contract,
right right right it Just sign X with your stub,
your bloody stuff, this old used roof shingle. I saw,
(35:54):
actually I saw that he did go to the hospital
and came back to the work site with his amputated finger.
And that's what Jamie Presidency was like, Hey, hey, I'm
sure he did that. What you canna do with that
any sense at all? Yeah, that he would just be like,
wait a minute. So they so, so Brian Rossiter gives
him his finger, and that's where the whole thing began,
just a couple of months before, right, Yeah, And I
(36:16):
think didn't didn't Rossiter himself also called the tip line.
I didn't see that anywhere. Okay, I heard he called
the tip line himself because he knew at this point
he was getting no money out of the scam, so
he thought, let me try and get this hundred grand
at least. And Wendy's never would cop to whether or
not he got any tip line money, right, And so
(36:36):
Mike Casey, the guy who from all from everything that
it seems he was innocent of this, he just happened
to put two and two together because he knew the
guys um He said originally, hey, you know, my asphalt
company maintains the lots of a few Wendy's around here,
and they've always been good to me, so I wanted
to help out. That was an article in May. An
(36:57):
article in September is Mike Casey saying, you know, Wendy's
never paid me that money for the hotline, So I
don't know if he ever got it, but from what
I saw, he was gonna have to split it with
the one other anonymous caller. I don't know if that
was Brian Rossater or not. Maybe Brian Rossater was scared
that Jamie Plasencia might do something if he found out
that he had been he had tipped him off for what.
(37:19):
But supposedly Mike Casey and this anonymous caller, we're going
to um split that hundred grand. So whether Wendy's actually
pay that money or not, that remains to be seen.
I don't know. I didn't see that anywhere. Well. In
the end, uh Y'alla and her husband. She got sentenced
to nine years. He got sentenced to twelve because I
(37:40):
think they piled on him for the probably child support
right or was it the trailer scam? Yeah, he know,
he got three in the third years for the um
the uh, the child support thing. Okay, Um. I don't
know how long he actually served. I think she only
served about four of that nine um. She later revealed
some more details, including that she did cook the finger. Yeah.
(38:05):
Uh apparently was not a It wasn't a raw finger,
nor though was it cooked in a hundred seventy agree
chili for three hours. But it was cooked a little bit.
I think she just literally probably put it in a
pan and was thinking like, oh, wait a minute, I
bet I bet they didn't think I would think of
this right, and cooked up the finger a little bit.
(38:27):
One thing that she didn't think of the chuck was, um,
she didn't bite the finger, And they found out pretty
quickly through forensic investigation that there was no bite in
the finger. Nor did she throw up in the restaurant
like she said she did, because there were people in
the restaurant. They were like, nah, I don't she didn't
vomit that I saw, And employees were like, no, she
didn't throw up that I saw. Her father in law
(38:50):
and mother in law both said, um, that they saw
her throw up, but yeah, there was no evidence of
vomit anywhere in the bathroom or around her table or anything. Yeah,
And they did a pretty bad job. Yeah they did.
I was gonna use a nasty word to characterize it,
but it's the family show. So well. These are the
worst kind of people man, These litigious like just like
(39:14):
work for your money man, going around suing corporations. I know.
So Wendy's supposedly lost two point five million dollars in
verifiable lost money. They had to cut people's hours. This
is another thing that kind of gets left off a lot.
They had to cut the hours of the employees UM
in the Bay Area, in particular because there was such
(39:37):
little foot traffic coming through their stores. So when they
were convicted and sentenced, Jamie Pleasencia and Anna Ayala were
um sentenced to pay back a hundred and seventy thousand
plus dollars in lost wages to the Wendy's employees. Oh
and they were also ordered to pay uh five hundred
(39:58):
thousand to a management who owned the Wendy's and then
like another another substantial amount to Wendy's if if they
ever profited from the crime man bad people. She was
banned from Windy's, which I don't know how you enforce that. Yeah,
I was wondering that myself. Actually, it seems uh like
I don't know if there's every Wendy's has a picture
of her something like that. I know what sports stadiums
(40:21):
they do that when people are banned, and that is
a little more enforceable because like you can literally just
have everyone be aware of that person. That's like checking
tickets and things. But you can't How can you keep
someone from coming into any Windy's anywhere? I don't know.
They can try. At least they can send a message
by saying, uh, you can't come here any longer. Arby's
(40:43):
two fingers two thousand four, two thousand twelve, No, uh,
Coal's frozen custard in Wilmington, North Carolina. Finger two thousand five,
t g I Friday's Hamburger had a finger in two
thousand six. Wow, And those are all verified and they
found you know, like, uh, it was in the supply chain,
like someone lost a finger and it got mixed in
(41:04):
and it's very just very unfortunate. I'm sure there were
quiet settlements on those. I'm sure too. This bizarre. I
had no idea that that happened. I thought it was
almost always either a case of mistaken identity or a hoax.
I didn't realize that actually really happened, you know. Oh yeah, well, um,
that's the Wendy's Chili finger caper. If you ever wanted
(41:26):
to know about it, now you do, and we're glad
that you do. We're glad we were the ones that
told you. And if you want to know more about it,
go read contemporary articles at the time. It's awesome just
to see something like that unfold. It's so cool. Uh
And since I said that, it's time for the listener,
mayo and hey, shout out to Wendy's. I'm sure I
(41:46):
don't know if they like people still talking about this
or not, but they did not put a finger in
anyone's chili. Yeah, good point, clear, good point. All right,
even gonna call this Adidas Puma. Hey, guys, just finished
listening to the few you between Addie and Ruddy Dassler.
I wanted to say I really enjoyed it. My dad
is actually from uh Hertz Generach. You were an Adida's
(42:10):
family through and through when my godmother, aunt aunt Helga
worked for Adidas as an administrative assistant for years. In
addition to this, almost jumped out of my seat when
you mentioned the mayor of hurt So you spoke of
Dr German Hawker and how he reft a soccer match
wearing one adidasue and one Puma. My uncle Hans was
the mayor right before Hawker was Yeah, I knew you
(42:31):
wouldn't be referring to him because he wouldn't have been
caught dead in even one Puma because of my aunt's
work at the opposing shop. I didn't wear Puma gear
myself until I was grown and could buy it myself,
and my entire German family called me a trader. Uh.
And this was in the early two thousand, so the
tension is still real. Um. I'm sure it was lighthearted
at least I hope it was. In any case, I
(42:53):
just want to let you know your research was spot on.
I really love hearing about something I knew a little
bit about. By the way, I also use your show
in my classroom teaching twelfth grade government in Civics, and
the kids love it. So shout out to Jennifer Westerner, Uh,
Gazoe at Thompson Stations, Tennessee and your senior government class. Well,
(43:16):
thank you, Ms Gigo and class. That's probably not pronounced right, Gaugo.
I have no idea Gaucho GeV. Yeah, Gansho goodnev. That's
what it is. UH. If you want to get in
touch with us to say HI about an old episode
or for whatever reason, you can go on to stuff
you Should Know dot com, check out our social media
(43:36):
links and UH. You can also send us an email
to stuff podcast at how stuff works dot com for
more on this and thousands of other topics. Is it
how stuff works dot com
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from how Stuff Works
dot Com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and there's Jerry and
this is the Stuff you Should Know Chili Caper Edition
Corporate Investigations, Las Vegas, saying Jose Chili Yeah, and that
(00:27):
means we get to use our special investigator nicknames Seattle Clark, Portland,
Bryant and San Francisco Jerry Rowland. That's not bad. I
would have chosen Tawny kitay In for me. Yeah. That
was a very ham fisted way to set up an
in show mention of our three shows next week. Oh yeah, next,
(00:48):
it's actually lost on me, Chuck next Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.
It's apparently lost on the Pacific Northwest because no one's
coming next Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. We will be in Seattle,
Portland and in Francisco on January sixteen and seventeen at
the More Theater, Revolution Hall and the Castro for Sketch Fest.
And uh, you have a Into the World live Friday
(01:10):
night in San Francisco, and I have a movie Crush
live on Saturday afternoon in San Francisco. I also have
a Brooklyn End of the World one two on the
twenty four, just f y. I. Hey, let's not get
carried away here, all right, But those are the shows
we have coming up everyone, so uh, come on out.
There's still great tickets left at all three of these venues,
(01:31):
uh and all five probably I don't I'm not sold
out for movie crushing so uh and especially those uh
into the world of movie crush shows your best chance
to hang out and talk to us personally, because they
are more intimate venues, like I wear a neglige Well,
Busy Phillips is there, so I'm gonna have on my
my dinner jacket. Oh very nice, trying to impress her
(01:53):
with my tuxedo, which is not impressive. Tuxedo and jeans
is a it's a it's a look. So get all
the information at s Y s k live dot com
or for the sketch Fest shows. Just go to the
s F Sketch Fest site and come out and support
us everyone and shake our hand, pat us on the back,
or spit on our shoes. Don't do that. Don't do that,
(02:17):
spit between our shoes. Just make it close. You know,
if you really hate us spit between our shoes. There
you go, that's gonna end up on a T shirt.
I have a feeling. All right, let's talk about chili fingers,
all right. So, um back in two thousand five. Actually
it's getting the way back machine. Go watch this thing,
go down way back machine just for this short distance. Yeah,
(02:39):
I mean, it's not like we can walk to two
thousand five. This is actually kind of great, though, because
when you're forty eight, almost to go back thirteen years,
I want to go back and do it all over.
So all of a sudden, I'm thirty five, which I
(03:01):
thought was old. Yeah, but man, I'd love to be
thirty five right now. I'm pretty happy with forty two.
I've got to say, I'm not quite I'm not quite
happy with the kind of catchers mit that my face
is turning into. But everything else I'm pretty glad about. Yeah.
Just wait, just wait, Okay, you're staring down the barrel
(03:23):
of fifty and you're going, geez, I only got like
fifteen more good years left. That's so not true. Don't
you know? Fifties the new thirty five? Is it? Do
you know what's funny is all the people in this
Windy's in San Jose. We just showed up at her.
Looking at it's like, what are these guys talking about?
I know they're like, get your superbar order underway. Yeah,
(03:44):
they're like, why don't you guys just be quiet and
listen to chumbawamba like everybody else's right now. I don't
think they had superbar in two thousand five. That was
more like the eighties and nineties. But still, what was it? Superbar? Yeah,
don't you don't remember that? No, Windy's in the eighties.
Oh yeah, the superbar, which was this weird combination of
tacos and pasta and salad and baked potatoes and baked
(04:06):
potatoes all just like whatever you want. I forgot all
about that, man, what a good idea. Yeah, the superbar
was a weird, weird thing, but I ate it. So
there is no superbar anymore. But there is. If you
look over, there's a woman named Anna or Anna Ayala,
and she is sitting with her in laws, her her
(04:26):
mother in law, her father in law, a brother in law,
maybe a couple other people, um, and she is about
to bite down into a bite of Wendy's chili that
she has just ordered at the San Jose Um Wendy's
downtown San Jose. Wendy's I believe March two, two thousand five. Yeah,
she's in her her late thirties. It's cold in San Jose.
(04:51):
She's from Las Vegas, so she's not used to this.
She's actually so she's from San Jose originally, but she's
moved to Vegas a couple of years ago. For she
has lived in Law Vegas lately and has been warming
in the sun there, and uh, it's like, I don't
like this cold. I'm gonna order some chili because Wendy's
chili is so so good. It's meaty and warm as
(05:11):
it puts it. That's right. And so she sits down,
she's eating this thing, and then all of a sudden,
look at her. She's just she's she's upset, Josh, she's
gone berserk. Everybody at the tables get their hands up,
like WHOA settled down, and she's like just pointed at
her chili, her chili cup, which she's reached the bottom of,
(05:33):
and she's saying that there's a finger in her chili
because she's just bit into a finger. Yeah, she looks
like she's about to puke. Um. I didn't see her vomit.
I didn't either, but in court later she would say
she did, so maybe we can be key witnesses. Right,
she's going up to the counter demanding I think she
(05:54):
just said to one of the cashiers, who did you
kill to get this finger? Which is a weird thing
to say. Yeah, she's yelling. Then everyone else in the
restaurant with chili saying, don't eat that fingers. That's finger chili.
That's right, finger chili no one wants. She's starting to
try to start a chant, I believe. And there's only
one guy that's still eating. And he said, yeah, I
ordered the finger chili, right, He said, I think you
(06:16):
got mine. So she's freaking out. Things are starting to
go down. There's a hubbub in the restaurant. Everyone's got
every She has everyone's attention. She's saying that she just
found a finger in her chili. The people at the
counter are incredulous. They're kind of poking at it a
little bit. They're saying, I think it's a vegetable or whatever.
It looks like a carrot to me, lady, right, A
very pale carrot with a fingernail on it, and it's
(06:38):
the fingernail really that does the trick. After this point,
it becomes clear to everyone in the Wendy's that there
is a finger that this woman just found in her chili.
There's a fingernail on it. It's about an inch and
a half of a finger from the tip to well
about an inch and a half down and she just
bit down on it and she found it in her chili.
So the Wendy's employees reacts with they dump out all
(07:01):
the chili, they call, they call the police. The police
come by and they say, well, this is a health
department kind of thing, really, And the police leave, and
the Wendy's employees called the owners of the franchise, J. E. M. Management,
and they say, don't do anything that finger. Put it
in the freezer and we'll be there in the morning.
(07:21):
And at this point, Anna Leah leaves or Anna Ayala.
This is going to be very difficult, because I want
to say Elia, she leaves, Her families are taking her
family members are taking pictures of the location, and a
huge national story has just begun. By ten o'clock that night.
This happened about seven. By ten o'clock on the local news,
(07:42):
there's an unconfirmed report of a woman who found a
finger in her chili at Wendy's, and Dave Thomas gets
indigestion immediately. Well, he'd been dead a few years, so
that'd be phenomenal. I thought he was alive. Then he
died in two thousand two. Okay, Well he's rolling over
in his grave. But by this time, you know, he'd
really kind of made Wendy's like a really loved and respected,
(08:05):
you know, restaurant, because everybody thought Dave Thomas was so great. Well, yeah,
and as are we out of the way back machine?
Are we done? Play acting? I was serious, but yes
we are. Well you were seriously play acting. You were
Laurence Olivier. Maybe I was delusional. I thought we were
in that one. Okay, so uh immediate, almost immediately, words
(08:29):
starts to spread on the news. Obviously, and as you
might well imagine the Windy's restaurant chain, especially in the
in the area in the Bay area near San Jose, um,
it really starts to take a business hit. As you
would imagine, people are not like, oh, they found a
(08:49):
finger in some Wendy's chili. That really reminds me how
much I love Wendy's chili, Right, let's go out and
get a hot cup, because they are sort of famous
for their chili. Oh yeah. I mean, like, if you
want chili at a fast food restaurant, you're going to
Wendy's because you're not gonna find it anywhere else. They
really planted their flag on the chili market. Yeah, the
old an W's had pretty good chili. Oh yeah, but
(09:12):
you wanted that on a dog. Sure. And and of
course the Midwest still very famous for their skyline chili,
which is delicious. Is that I guess i'd be fast food?
Huh yeah, I think they actually have skyline chili restaurants. Yeah, yeah,
which is good. It's quite good. It is. Um. But
if you're going to go just about anywhere in the
(09:34):
US you have a hankering for chili, you're gonna go
to Wendy's. But, like you said, sales started to plummet,
and not just like chili sales, all wendy sales started
to take it hit, especially in the Bay Area, like
you said, especially in in the Western United States. People
were just kind of grossed out by this whole idea. Um.
But like I said, the the the cops had shown
(09:55):
up and decided it was a health inspectors or a
health departments jam. They didn't really have anything to do
with it. So the next morning, uh, the owners of
the franchise, the county health inspector, they showed up, I
think they contacted Wendy's communications department, and the gears were
starting to move. There was something that they had to
(10:16):
deal with, and that was basically threefold. It was really
twofold as far as Wendy's was concerned at first, but
the third one crept in pretty quickly. Whose finger was this?
How did the finger get into the chili? And then
after that who was this woman who who found the
finger in her chili? And so Wendy's really started to
(10:39):
focus on the first two because um one thing that
this whole the way that this whole thing played out,
the cops were very hands off at first. They felt
this was a health department issue, a public health issue,
and not a police issue, and basically said you need
to go figure this out yourself Wendy's and so Wendy's
had to do a lot of extra leg work that
(11:01):
they probably wouldn't have had to do had the cops
decided immediately that it was a criminal issue. But in
the cops defense, it didn't appear immediately to be a
criminal issue. It appeared to be like a woman found
a finger in her chili at Wendy's and that's gross,
so go figure it out Wendy's. Yeah. I also bet
there was like one guy who literally ate went to
(11:21):
that specific Wendy's to get chili the next day and
was like, dude, that's the last place you're going to
find a finger in your chili. Now, there's no way
it would happen again. What are the chances. Yeah, like
flying on an airline right after they have a crash.
He's like, you go to Burger King, you're gonna get
a finger. They're gonna purposely give you a finger. Man,
don't be naive. Al Right, So did you introduce police
(11:44):
Chief Rob Davis? Yet? Not yet? All right, So this
is the guy San Jose police chief that would ultimately
lead this investigation later on, though after Wendy's did a
lot of the initial legwork for him. Yes, he would
lead the investigation, and he uh he. Basically it was like,
I gotta find out who this lady is because Wendy's
(12:07):
they're operating on the downlow here. Uh. And this this
is a sort of a and apparently this is this
case is taught in classes now about like how to
handle a crisis as a corporation. Yeah, I've seen I've
seen it criticized. I've also seen it held up as
a as an example of what to do too well.
I mean, here's what Wendy's can and can't do. What
(12:28):
they can do is quietly throw a lot of money
at this investigation on their own, uh, and then publicly.
What they can't do is is start to go after
this lady and be too sort of um dismissive of
this finger like there's no way, lady, this lady's nuts,
she's whatever, she's after money, Like, you can't do that
(12:50):
as a public facing company. You have to be doing
all your due diligence sort of quietly. And they really were,
They really were. So how how about this, dude, Let's
take a break and then we'll come back and we'll
talk about the investigation that Wendy started. How about that? Chuck? Alright, Chuck, So,
(13:32):
like you said, Wendy's can't just be like that lady's
a liar. There's no way, that's our finger. Um. They
had to basically operate in the background. They couldn't appear
like they were obstructing the police investigation. They couldn't appear
like they were smearing uh Anna ayala, especially because the
early reports were very sympathetic to this woman too. Everybody's
very grossed out by this sure. Um. But at the
(13:55):
same time, they had they had to deal with this issue,
and they had to get to the bottom of whose
finger was and where the finger came from. Yeah, And
so the obvious first place to start is the restaurant itself. Uh,
the employees there. The very obvious first place to start
is to see if anyone was missing a finger. And
that's what they did. They said, show us your hands. Yeah,
(14:16):
everyone looked at the everyone's fingers. They were all there,
and they went all right, so far, so good. Uh.
They would eventually put everyone on staff through a polygraph
test um, which they all passed. Uh. They would obviously
then they would go to up the supply chain to
see if this thing might have because you know, these
things happen, um, yeah, rarely they do. Though. Well, I
(14:39):
found five other cases of fingers in fast food that
were that were legitimate. Oh yeah, so it happens up
to supply chain. You know, there can be an industrial
accident that leaves a finger in a bag of lettuce,
greens or something, and that might eventually find its way
to a Windy's superbar. Oh my god, you know, doesn't
(15:00):
have been much. I don't I wouldn't be too freaked out.
I'm still freaked out. Well, we'll go over those at
the end. But they're going up the supply chain. They're
really doing their due diligence. They can't find. They offer
a reward at first of fifty grand, later a hundred grand. Well,
they set up yeah hotline for tips. But they're they're basically,
(15:22):
as time is going on, becoming more and more confident
that they did not have a finger in that chili,
right by their own fault. They traced the chili ingredients
to seven different suppliers, and they got documentation from all
seven suppliers that nobody at their companies had suffered any
kind of finger injury at any any recent time. And also,
(15:44):
like you said, doing at the store, doing at any
of the nearby stores had suffered any finger injury, let
alone in amputation. Um. And so Wendy's was like, this,
this didn't come from us, This didn't come from inside
our store. Um. And they also they kind of ran
a simultaneous forensic investigation as well. They hired a woman
(16:04):
named Dr Lynn Bates who's the CEO of a company
called Alteca out of Manhattan, Kansas. And if you are
looking for um evidence or study of a body part
that was found in food, you go to Dr Lynn S.
Bates and Alteca because they are they engage in forensic
food microscopy. That's what they do, is there. That's their
(16:27):
bread and butter is fine. Is is studying body parts
found in food, and she's been doing it since nineteen six.
So Wendy's went to her and said, here is a
piece of this finger. Was this finger cooked in this chili?
Whose finger is it? She's like, I can't tell you
whose finger it is, but I can't tell you that
there is no indication that this finger was cooked for
(16:48):
three hours in chili at a hundred and seventy degrees.
It just wasn't. So that was a that combined with
the the Wendy's No Wendy's employer or suppliers employers missing
a finger that told Wendy's everything they need to know
that they were being defrauded. Yeah, and you would think,
just grab a fingerprint, police force. Uh, And then they
(17:09):
weren't able to. They weren't able to. They said, if
they have found a hand, that they might could literally
look and compare fingerprints, but they they didn't get a
good enough print off it to uh to do a
legitimate database search, right right, They just had to sit
around and wait for that hand to show up. Because
that thing had been cooking in chili for three hours.
(17:30):
It had not been cooked in chili for three hours
at any rate. Um, So Wendy's knew what was going on.
Now they had to go to the cops and say,
we're being defrauded. Not only did they have the search
for the missing finger investigation internally, and they hired Lynn
Bates to to do forensic work on the finger itself,
(17:52):
they also hired a detective to start looking around it
Anna Ayala, and the detective turned up some very interesting
stuff about her. Yeah, he was like, wait a minute,
this woman has filed at least thirteen civil lawsuits, some
against major corporations, and they he probably could have stopped
there and Wendy's would have just been like Dave Thomas
(18:15):
from the grave would have said, see there, she's no good.
That's a that's a good Dave Thomas. So that I
think he would have said, like she should still get
the benefit of the doubt. I don't know, man, when
you've when someone is this uh as a pattern of
litigious behaviors like this, Well maybe he finished with proved
(18:35):
me wrong one. There were a couple of notable ones.
Um that it's it's sort of uh, frustratingly hard to
find information. Um. She claimed that she won a thirty
thousand dollar settlement from Elpolo Loco from medical bills from
her daughter getting sick from salmonella. Elpolio Loco has always
been on record saying never happened. We did not give
(18:57):
that lady a dime GM. She sued GM because the
front wheel of her her car came off and there
was an accident, and uh, that suit was dismissed with
prejudice when she fired her lawyer was a no show
in court. Oh is that what that means? No? No,
no with prejudice means you can't bring it back. Okay,
(19:20):
so you can't. She can't say well, like, well, I
didn't show up and my lawyer was bad, so let's
do this again. Okay, I got you. So basically it
was dead in the water. So she sued a former
employer for her sexual harassment. I'm not even gonna comment
on that one because I have no idea that could
very well have been legitimate if that one struck me
as possibly legitimate. But she dropped it right. She lawyered
(19:44):
up immediately with the chilly finger, and everything made Chief
Rob Davis very suspicious. Uh. And then this this guy
that lived with her family named Ken Bono or Bano.
What did you say? No, I've been saying. Bono hasn't
even occurred to me. It could be Bono related to
(20:05):
Bono Kim Bono. Because the cops are starting to ask
questions at this point, they do official investigations, they search
her house. She claims that they held a gun to
her head, ransacked her home, and like abused her daughter. Yeah,
it's quite a charge for a finger chili house investigation.
There's a picture of her and her daughter in the
(20:27):
driveway talking to a reporter and her daughter's got like
her arm in a sling, but like the kind of
sling you just go by at the at the drug store.
So this was a guy who lived Bono, lived with
their family, and when he's being investigated by the cops, uh,
he said that this finger came from our aunt. Are
(20:48):
are deceased aunt. It's her finger, all right, which is
a weird thing to say, especially because Anna I alas
said all of my ants are alive. I don't know
what this guy's talking about, even though he lives in
my house. Yeah, what was was he trying to get money?
I don't know what. I can't figure out. I couldn't
find much on that guy. Um, I don't know what
(21:09):
the deal was. I also just saw references to a
rumor that the media had been reporting on that it
was her dead aunt's finger. So, um, I didn't see
how it came from him or what he was trying
to do with that. But that's that was the thing.
But that was just kind of like a little side
thread that I think also made the cops a little
more suspicious to like, that's just a weird thing to say,
(21:30):
even jokingly. Yeah, but they did actually get While it
didn't lead to the who finger it was, that tipline
did yield some stuff at first. Right. So yeah, So,
like you said, Wendy set up a tipline, a hotline
that you could call in, and what they were looking
for specifically ostensibly was whose finger it was. That's what
they wanted information the owner of the finger. UM. But
(21:50):
they were taking any and all tips that people called in,
and they started offering fifty grand like you said, they
later up to to a hundred grand um and it
started to yield some tips, like pretty pretty much off
the bat. I think the San Jose Police and Wendy's
is funneling this information to the cops um as it
comes in, like as good tips come in. UM. But
(22:12):
two very early on came in from what the San
Jose Police said. There were two different people who supposedly
did not know each other, who told very similar stories
about how Anna Iala had told them that she was
fleecing Wendy's, that all of this was just a fraud
for money to extort money from Wendy's in a lawsuit.
(22:32):
So that that combined with all the evidence that Wendy's
had gathered that it the finger had not come from
inside their store, UM, all of the Anna i Alla's background, uh,
all of that put together really turned the tide not
just on a police investigation, but also on the media
(22:52):
against Anna Iala. And she had started this, she had
created a huge media circus around the issue, Like she
went on Good Morning America and I could not find
I think Good Morning America just took the video down.
He probably just burned it because she just went on
and lied, lied, lied her through her teeth about what
(23:16):
had happened, and just pointed at Wendy's and said, like,
these guys screwed up, and this is the most disgusting
thing that could happen to somebody, And I'm torn up
inside about it, and they should pay on on national
news about a week after the incident. Yeah, So, like
you said, this is all playing out pretty quickly. It's
(23:38):
all over the news, it's all over late night talk
show comedy. Uh, just bad joke after bad joke coming
out of Jay Leno's mouth. I won't even repeat the
one that ed included. I like the Letterman, when did
you see Letterman's said that she'd been spotted going back
at Wendy's in ordering chili again because she was going
back to collect all five. That's good. You gotta give
(24:00):
it up for letting me what what was Leno's something
about him? They don't. The chili now comes with fingernail
clippers beside the fingernail clippers, and that really just encapsulate,
encapsulates the difference between those two men. It does, although
they have their joke writers, but still the love of cars,
I think is also a big differentiator. I don't think
(24:20):
Letterman really cares about cars. Shout out to Brian Kylie
and Rob Kuttner. Shout out to the mid nineties Letterman
Book of Top ten Lists that helped shape me as
a human being. Brian and Rob are Conan O'Brien's monologue
joke writers and have been for many, many years. Did
I tell you you mean? And I went to see
Conan O'Brien live with Ron Funches and a couple of
(24:42):
other people. Yea, do some standards. It was so good
and we actually turned out we were staying. We were
sitting next to a member of the s Y S
k Army throughout the show. Oh no way. Yeah. He
was like are you Josh and you me? We were
like yeah, he was a good good guy, good kid.
You mean He's like, i'mum, but that's not Josh. Right,
He's like, well that's weird. I'm suspicious now, um, all right,
(25:04):
where were we? All right, it's all over the news.
This is all playing out very fast. But the the
drag net is sort of closing in um thanks to
Wendy's investigations, thanks to the cops getting involved, and uh,
miss Ayala is starting to feel the heat and like
anyone who and I think the cats out of the
bag now right. I think it was put the finger
(25:27):
in the chili. Yeah, anytime someone does something like that,
it seems like two things happened. They bragged to their
friends because they're dummies to begin with, and then that
net starts to close and it all starts to fall apart. Right.
So her response, and this is a pretty human response,
she basically said, once the media spotlight went from sympathetic
(25:48):
to her to wait a minute, who are you again?
And how do you explain this thing and that thing
and all this, she she was like never mind. Yeah,
that's basically what she said. She said, You know, I
can't handle this media spot eight or anything anymore. So
I'm just gonna drop my lawsuit against Wendy's. We'll just
forget all about this, and Wendy said, no, we're not
going to just forget all about this. No, let's take
(26:11):
a break, shall we. We're going to take a break, chuck. So,
(26:43):
I can't surely when Anna Iala was like, Okay, I'm
just gonna drop the lawsuit and this will go away,
there had to only have been maybe one and a
quarter percent of her brain that thought that that was
actually going to work, that was actually gonna go away.
She seems like street wise and savvy enough to me
that that she knew it probably wasn't just going to
(27:06):
go away, that that was nothing but hope, right, I
guess I'm curious about that. Uh yeah, I don't know, man,
But like the more that they poke into her private life.
Then you learned that she and her husband James uh
Placincia had uh there was a and this one's hard
to get information on. Two. From what I can tell
(27:28):
is they sold a trailer trailer park trailer that did
not belong to them, Yes, for eleven thousand dollars. She
did specifically, I don't know that he was involved. He
may have even owned the trailer, but regardless, she did
not own the trailers sold it to a woman for
eleven thousand dollars, and later on the woman and her
(27:50):
children were evicted um from the trailer that they thought
they owned that they didn't own. Yes, they also learned
that her husband, I guess from her previous marriage, owed
a lot of money and child support, and so things
are starting to fall into place to where they're like,
this lady is always making up stories, ensuing companies, she's
(28:12):
always looking for that get rich angle. Her husband owes
a ton of money, and so this is all sorting.
They're starting to uh finger her if you will, for
this crime. It's the worst pun ever we met. We all,
I thought we were going to make it through this,
but now I've even been saying tipline about it. But okay,
(28:37):
all right, it's done. It's out there. So they finally, uh,
like you said, even though she was like, oh well,
let's just forget about it, They're like, no, no no, no,
we can't do that. Uh. And then there enters a
lady that just kind of and it didn't end up
having the hugest impact on the case itself, but it
is worth mentioning this woman named Sandy Almond. Uh, this
is a little strange. So this is a woman who
(28:58):
owned uh exotic cats, big cats, leopards, jaguars, tigers. I
think is that how we're saying jaguars now jaguar? Yeah? Yeah,
tell that, Britt says it on the commercial. Is it
the year in sales of m up in here, Yeah,
the Jaguar X twelve. So this lady elms, they's big cats. Um.
(29:23):
This is uh not too far from Vegas where she
lives in parump Nevada, I guess, or is it California
on the California side? You know, I think it's Nevada. Okay,
I don't know actually know that you mentioned it. Uh.
And she eventually, I guess, has to get rid of
these cats and calls in a rescue group that does
things like this. They're like, we're a wild animal orphanage
and you're a dumb dumb who bought all these animals
(29:43):
you shouldn't have had, so now we will deal with it.
And during this transfer of animals, she's attacked by a
spotted leopard and it bites off her finger. Yes, and
she says, she comes forward and says, I think that
is my finger. No, No, I think actually A person
who is at the wildlife rescue at the time, was
(30:04):
the one who called the tip line with that one, Oh,
I thought, because she wanted to take a DNA test
and everything. Oh I didn't see that. Okay, alright, cool.
So she's the one who called and said that's my finger.
Well she wanted I don't know if she literally picked
up the phone and called, but she got involved such
that she wanted to take a DNA test to find
out if that was her finger, gotcha? Okay? Cool? Cool? Well, yeah,
(30:24):
because she had said that the last time she'd seen
it it was on ice in the emergency room. So
I guess she wasn't the sentimental type who's like, I
want my finger back, would you? Oh yeah, floated from aldehyde.
You me would probably have the thing gilded and wear
it around her neck. Uh yeah, I'd be like, that's
my finger on yous neck, check it out. Um. But
(30:46):
so the the whole thing was just a red herring
though a blind alley right like it it went nowhere. No,
it was not her finger. No. Um. There were some
other tips that came in about the finger. Um. There
the Mexican can authorities, I guess just over the border
got involved because it was rumored that a an incident
with a ranch hand losing a finger in Mexico had
(31:10):
been the source of the finger um as, even as
Anna Ayala, who, by the way, that whole tip about
the trailer um sale, the trailer scam that came in
from Wendy's hotline as well. By this time, I believe
it was day uh twenty two. No, I'm sorry, it
(31:31):
was day thirty thirty two. I believe about a month
after the incident originally happened. Anna Ayala and Jamie Palencia Plasencia,
her husband, we're both arrested in Las Vegas, him for
the child support payments, failure to pay child support, her
for that trailer scam. And so while they're on ice
(31:53):
in Las Vegas, Wendy's is still conducting this investigation. San
Jose are still conducting this investigation, and and they've got them,
they have them on this other stuff. But I guess
they just kind of kept them from running and that's
why they arrested him, uh, knowing that they were eventually
going to build the case. I'm not sure, but that's
exactly what happened, because I think about fifty two days
(32:14):
after she walked into that Wendy's and put the finger
in the chili and took that bite. Um. They they
charged them for grand theft, for basically defrauding Windy's. Yeah,
and at this point, as far as the police we
were concerned, They're like, we don't even need to know
whose finger this is at this point, right, like that
that's really immaterial. But Wendy's they still have a public
(32:37):
relations crisis going on, and they're like, we really would
like to find out where this finger came from, just
so like as many facts out there as possible will
really help us restore our good name if we can
actually pinpoint whose finger this is and exactly how this
happened and let everybody know what what went on. Yeah,
(32:57):
so they they actually that's when they up the um
the reward from fifty thousand to a hundred thousand, right,
and that's when they hit the jackpot, which is ironically,
they got two callers on the hundred thousand dollar line
head color you're on the dollar, and then for the
(33:18):
next thirty seconds like hello, am I am I on?
Can you hear me? Yes, you're on, You're on in
my life right now? They called the two people called
one to this day, as far as I can Tell
has remained anonymous. The other one was a guy named
Mike Casey, and Mike Casey owned a company called Lamb
(33:38):
Asphalt out of Las Vegas, Nevada, and he happened to
be the employer of Jamie Plasencia. And he said, it's
weird because you arrested one of my employees, one of
my longtime employees, um for this scam. And I also
have another employee named Brian Rossiter who lost a finger
(33:59):
not too long ago, and I think they might be connected.
I think that might be Brian Rossiter's finger. And that's
how the whole thing finally came crashing down because they
got ahold of Brian Rossiter. They gotta They gave him
a DNA test. They matched it to the DNA taken
from the finger, and they said it's Brian Rossiter's finger.
Brian Rossiter worked with Jamie Plasencia. Jamie Plasencia was married
(34:24):
to Anna Iala. Anna Iala found a finger in her
Chili ipso facto, something's rotten in Denmark and that's how
it stands. Yeah, And it's even a little weirder when
you find out the details. So Brian is at work
someone slams the tailgate of the truck on his hand,
cuts an inch and a half off of his finger.
Can you imagine, dude, no, uh, cuts off his finger.
(34:50):
And it's funny too because Ed points out, instead of
like driving to the hospital, which is what any normal
person would have done, he had owed Placentia some money placentia.
And this is a man, a husband of a woman
who it seems like they're both always looking to scam somebody,
and they're looking for the angle. He sees this finger
(35:12):
and he goes, hey, you owe me money. Some people
say it was fifty bucks. We don't know for sure.
I saw a hundred almost everywhere. Okay, so let's say
it's a hundred. He's like, you give me that that finger,
and we'll just call it square. And not only that,
my friend, but if you ever hear about this finger
in the news, keep it quiet, and I will give
(35:33):
you a quarter of a million dollars at some point
in the future. That's what they call the carrot and
the other carrot. Yeah, so he said, just drip some
blood on this roof shingle, and that will be our contract,
right right right it Just sign X with your stub,
your bloody stuff, this old used roof shingle. I saw,
(35:54):
actually I saw that he did go to the hospital
and came back to the work site with his amputated finger.
And that's what Jamie Presidency was like, Hey, hey, I'm
sure he did that. What you canna do with that
any sense at all? Yeah, that he would just be like,
wait a minute. So they so, so Brian Rossiter gives
him his finger, and that's where the whole thing began,
just a couple of months before, right, Yeah, And I
(36:16):
think didn't didn't Rossiter himself also called the tip line.
I didn't see that anywhere. Okay, I heard he called
the tip line himself because he knew at this point
he was getting no money out of the scam, so
he thought, let me try and get this hundred grand
at least. And Wendy's never would cop to whether or
not he got any tip line money, right, And so
(36:36):
Mike Casey, the guy who from all from everything that
it seems he was innocent of this, he just happened
to put two and two together because he knew the
guys um He said originally, hey, you know, my asphalt
company maintains the lots of a few Wendy's around here,
and they've always been good to me, so I wanted
to help out. That was an article in May. An
(36:57):
article in September is Mike Casey saying, you know, Wendy's
never paid me that money for the hotline, So I
don't know if he ever got it, but from what
I saw, he was gonna have to split it with
the one other anonymous caller. I don't know if that
was Brian Rossater or not. Maybe Brian Rossater was scared
that Jamie Plasencia might do something if he found out
that he had been he had tipped him off for what.
(37:19):
But supposedly Mike Casey and this anonymous caller, we're going
to um split that hundred grand. So whether Wendy's actually
pay that money or not, that remains to be seen.
I don't know. I didn't see that anywhere. Well. In
the end, uh Y'alla and her husband. She got sentenced
to nine years. He got sentenced to twelve because I
(37:40):
think they piled on him for the probably child support
right or was it the trailer scam? Yeah, he know,
he got three in the third years for the um
the uh, the child support thing. Okay, Um. I don't
know how long he actually served. I think she only
served about four of that nine um. She later revealed
some more details, including that she did cook the finger. Yeah.
(38:05):
Uh apparently was not a It wasn't a raw finger,
nor though was it cooked in a hundred seventy agree
chili for three hours. But it was cooked a little bit.
I think she just literally probably put it in a
pan and was thinking like, oh, wait a minute, I
bet I bet they didn't think I would think of
this right, and cooked up the finger a little bit.
(38:27):
One thing that she didn't think of the chuck was, um,
she didn't bite the finger, And they found out pretty
quickly through forensic investigation that there was no bite in
the finger. Nor did she throw up in the restaurant
like she said she did, because there were people in
the restaurant. They were like, nah, I don't she didn't
vomit that I saw, And employees were like, no, she
didn't throw up that I saw. Her father in law
(38:50):
and mother in law both said, um, that they saw
her throw up, but yeah, there was no evidence of
vomit anywhere in the bathroom or around her table or anything. Yeah,
And they did a pretty bad job. Yeah they did.
I was gonna use a nasty word to characterize it,
but it's the family show. So well. These are the
worst kind of people man, These litigious like just like
(39:14):
work for your money man, going around suing corporations. I know.
So Wendy's supposedly lost two point five million dollars in
verifiable lost money. They had to cut people's hours. This
is another thing that kind of gets left off a lot.
They had to cut the hours of the employees UM
in the Bay Area, in particular because there was such
(39:37):
little foot traffic coming through their stores. So when they
were convicted and sentenced, Jamie Pleasencia and Anna Ayala were
um sentenced to pay back a hundred and seventy thousand
plus dollars in lost wages to the Wendy's employees. Oh
and they were also ordered to pay uh five hundred
(39:58):
thousand to a management who owned the Wendy's and then
like another another substantial amount to Wendy's if if they
ever profited from the crime man bad people. She was
banned from Windy's, which I don't know how you enforce that. Yeah,
I was wondering that myself. Actually, it seems uh like
I don't know if there's every Wendy's has a picture
of her something like that. I know what sports stadiums
(40:21):
they do that when people are banned, and that is
a little more enforceable because like you can literally just
have everyone be aware of that person. That's like checking
tickets and things. But you can't How can you keep
someone from coming into any Windy's anywhere? I don't know.
They can try. At least they can send a message
by saying, uh, you can't come here any longer. Arby's
(40:43):
two fingers two thousand four, two thousand twelve, No, uh,
Coal's frozen custard in Wilmington, North Carolina. Finger two thousand five,
t g I Friday's Hamburger had a finger in two
thousand six. Wow, And those are all verified and they
found you know, like, uh, it was in the supply chain,
like someone lost a finger and it got mixed in
(41:04):
and it's very just very unfortunate. I'm sure there were
quiet settlements on those. I'm sure too. This bizarre. I
had no idea that that happened. I thought it was
almost always either a case of mistaken identity or a hoax.
I didn't realize that actually really happened, you know. Oh yeah, well, um,
that's the Wendy's Chili finger caper. If you ever wanted
(41:26):
to know about it, now you do, and we're glad
that you do. We're glad we were the ones that
told you. And if you want to know more about it,
go read contemporary articles at the time. It's awesome just
to see something like that unfold. It's so cool. Uh
And since I said that, it's time for the listener,
mayo and hey, shout out to Wendy's. I'm sure I
(41:46):
don't know if they like people still talking about this
or not, but they did not put a finger in
anyone's chili. Yeah, good point, clear, good point. All right,
even gonna call this Adidas Puma. Hey, guys, just finished
listening to the few you between Addie and Ruddy Dassler.
I wanted to say I really enjoyed it. My dad
is actually from uh Hertz Generach. You were an Adida's
(42:10):
family through and through when my godmother, aunt aunt Helga
worked for Adidas as an administrative assistant for years. In
addition to this, almost jumped out of my seat when
you mentioned the mayor of hurt So you spoke of
Dr German Hawker and how he reft a soccer match
wearing one adidasue and one Puma. My uncle Hans was
the mayor right before Hawker was Yeah, I knew you
(42:31):
wouldn't be referring to him because he wouldn't have been
caught dead in even one Puma because of my aunt's
work at the opposing shop. I didn't wear Puma gear
myself until I was grown and could buy it myself,
and my entire German family called me a trader. Uh.
And this was in the early two thousand, so the
tension is still real. Um. I'm sure it was lighthearted
at least I hope it was. In any case, I
(42:53):
just want to let you know your research was spot on.
I really love hearing about something I knew a little
bit about. By the way, I also use your show
in my classroom teaching twelfth grade government in Civics, and
the kids love it. So shout out to Jennifer Westerner, Uh,
Gazoe at Thompson Stations, Tennessee and your senior government class. Well,
(43:16):
thank you, Ms Gigo and class. That's probably not pronounced right, Gaugo.
I have no idea Gaucho GeV. Yeah, Gansho goodnev. That's
what it is. UH. If you want to get in
touch with us to say HI about an old episode
or for whatever reason, you can go on to stuff
you Should Know dot com, check out our social media
(43:36):
links and UH. You can also send us an email
to stuff podcast at how stuff works dot com for
more on this and thousands of other topics. Is it
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Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.
Death, Sex & Money
Anna Sale explores the big questions and hard choices that are often left out of polite conversation.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.