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