A customer at a fast food restaurant said she bit into something in her chilli that turned out to be the end of a human finger but the gruesome tale had a bizarre plot twist
Finding a hair in your salad or a fly in your soup is far from ideal and can be off putting for any restaurant customer, who may demand a refund or a replacement.
Such unsavoury discoveries pale in comparison though to what one woman found in her grub at a fast food chain in America – a dismembered human body part.
Anna Ayala visited the popular Wendy’s at their California branch where she ordered a pot of their chilli. However, staff there were presumably aghast when she told them she had bitten into a finger while munching on the spicy meat and vegetable delicacy. It comes after a man dies and 9 more rushed to hospital after eating sandwich amid urgent recall.
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With the shocking tale making headlines in 2005, Anna, then 40, recounted what happened to TV reporters. According to Crime Monthly she said at the time: “I started eating… then suddenly I eat something hard. Kind of crunchy and spit it out. At first I wasn’t sure what it was. Then we started poking it – other people too – that’s when we found it was something that looks like a nail.” She then claimed to have vomited.
The restaurant chain said none of their employees who had been in contact with the preparation of the food had been injured or indeed lost any digits. Realising it could be facing a million dollar bill in compensation if the repulsive claim was upheld, Wendy’s enlisted its top lawyers to fight the case.
Due to the fact the finding was of human origin, police launched a forensic investigation. The county coroner found that the finger had not been cooked for three hours at 170 degrees, which is how Wendy’s prepared their chilli. Forensic tests also showed Anna, who by now had been dubbed ‘The Chilli Finger Lady’, hadn’t bitten into the one and a half inch severed digit.
Police raided her Las Vegas home and questioned her husband Jamie Placencia as well as others the couple knew. There were rumours the finger belonged to a dead aunt but it eventually transpired that Jamie had bought it from a colleague, Brian Rossiter, who had suffered an industrial accident. He paid $100 for the stomach churning item and took it home to Anna who cooked it and took it to Wendy’s to slip into her usually delicious dish.
When the scheming pair realised the cops and Wendy’s were on to them, they offered the owner of the fingertip $250,000 (£185,520) to keep his mouth shut. Police said Brian came forward and told them about their scam but claimed he didn’t know anything about it until that point.
He was never charged but the devious couple were charged with grand theft and filing a false insurance claim. They were found guilty, with Anna given nine years behind bars and her husband 12.
They were also ordered to pay $170,000 (£12,590) in compensation to the branch in San Jose. Wendy’s claimed it had lost an eye watering $21million (£15million) in revenue after appalled customers shunned the chain. It also said dozens of employees at its Northern California restaurants had to be laid off because of the scandal.
After her sentencing, Anna said the plot was Jamie’s idea and that Brian was also involved. But she did admit she’d caused a lot of damage and was guilty. “I was expecting it,” she said of the jail time. “Obviously, I committed a crime, and I should pay for it, and I’m ready. I know I’ve hurt a lot of people.” She also claimed they didn’t intend on targeting Wendy’s, but “it was there” so they ended up carrying out their crime there.
Anna was let out of prison five years early for good behaviour and claimed she had learned her lesson. However in 2013 she was found guilty of filing a false police report after claiming that her son had been shot by two unknown people.
In the end both admitted it was a lie. The son, who wasn’t allowed to own firearms because of previous convictions, had actually shot himself in the foot and they had tried to cover it up with their false story. Anna and her son were sent to prison for two years.
