Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, happy Saturday morning or whenever this finds you.
Speaker 1: Chuck here introducing this week's Selects episode, and we're gonna
Speaker 1: replay the great Finger in the Wendy's Chili Caper episode
Speaker 1: from January tenth, twenty nineteen. There was a finger found
Speaker 1: in Wendy's chili, and this is that story, nuff said.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 3: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and
Speaker 3: there's Charles w Chuck Bryant, and there's Jerry And this
Speaker 3: is the Stuff you Should Know. Chili Caper Edition Corporate Investigations,
Speaker 3: Las Vegas, San Jose Chili.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that means we get to use our special
Speaker 1: investigator nicknames Seattle Clark, Portland Bryant and San Francisco Jerry Rowland.
Speaker 3: That's not bad. I would have chosen Tawny Katayan for me.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: That was a very ham fisted way to set up
Speaker 1: an inshow mention of our three shows next week.
Speaker 3: Oh oh yeah, next, that's actually lost on me, Chuck Next.
Speaker 2: Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.
Speaker 1: It's apparently lost on the Pacific Northwest because no one's coming.
Speaker 2: Next Tuesday Wednesday and Thursday.
Speaker 1: We will be in Seattle, Portland, and San Francisco on
Speaker 1: January fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth at the More Theater, Revolution Hall,
Speaker 1: and the Castro for Sketch Fest. And you have a
Speaker 1: End of the World Live Friday night in San Francisco,
Speaker 1: and I have a Movie Crush Live on Saturday afternoon
Speaker 1: in San Francisco.
Speaker 3: I also have a Brooklyn End of the World one
Speaker 3: two on the twenty fourth.
Speaker 1: Just FYI, Hey, let's not get carried away here, Okay,
Speaker 1: all right, but those are the shows we have coming
Speaker 1: up everyone, so come on out. There's still great tickets
Speaker 1: left at all three of these venues and all five
Speaker 1: probably I don't.
Speaker 2: I'm not sold out for Movie Crush. So and especially
Speaker 2: those End of the World of Movie.
Speaker 1: Crush shows are your best chance to hang out and
Speaker 1: talk to us personally because they are more intimate venues.
Speaker 3: Like I wear a neglige.
Speaker 2: Well, Busy Phillips is there, so I'm gonna have on
Speaker 2: my dinner jacket.
Speaker 3: Oh, very nice.
Speaker 1: Trying to impress her with my tuxedo, right, she's not impressive.
Speaker 3: Tuxedo and jeans is a it's a it's a look.
Speaker 1: So get all the information at s ysk live dot
Speaker 1: com or for the sketch Fest shows. Just go to
Speaker 1: the s F sketch Fest site and come out and
Speaker 1: support us everyone and shake our hand, pat us on
Speaker 1: the back, or spit on our shoes.
Speaker 2: Don't do that. Don't do that.
Speaker 3: Spit between our shoes. Just make it close, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, if you really hate us, spit between our shoes.
Speaker 3: There you go. That's gonna end up on a T shirt.
Speaker 3: I have a feeling. All right, let's talk about chili fingers,
Speaker 3: all right, So back in two thousand and five. Actually,
Speaker 3: let's getting the way back machine. Go watch this thing
Speaker 3: go down.
Speaker 2: Way Back machine just for this short distance.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, it's not like you can walk to
Speaker 3: two thousand and five.
Speaker 1: This is actually kind of great, though, because when you're
Speaker 1: forty eight, almost to go back thirteen years, I want
Speaker 1: to go back and do it all over. So all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, I'm thirty five, which I thought was old. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but man, I'd love to be thirty five right now.
Speaker 3: I'm pretty happy with forty two. I've got to say,
Speaker 3: I'm not quite I'm not quite happy with the kind
Speaker 3: of catcher's mitt that my face is turning into but
Speaker 3: everything else I'm pretty glad about.
Speaker 1: Yeah, just wait, just wait, Okay, it happens. Oh no,
Speaker 1: you're staring down the barrel of fifty and you're going, geez,
Speaker 1: I only got like fifteen more good years left.
Speaker 3: Good. That is so not true, don't you know? Fifties
Speaker 3: the new thirty five? Is it? Do you know what's
Speaker 3: funny is all the people in this Wendy's in San Jose.
Speaker 3: We just showed up at her looking at us, like,
Speaker 3: what are these guys talking about?
Speaker 2: I know they're like, get your superbar order underway.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're like, why don't you guys just be quiet
Speaker 3: and listen to chumbawamba like everybody else's right now.
Speaker 1: I don't think they had super bar in two thousand
Speaker 1: and five. That was more like the eighties and nineties.
Speaker 1: But still, what was it? Superbar?
Speaker 2: Yeah you don't remember that. No, Wendy'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.
Speaker 3: I forgot all about that, man, what a good idea.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the superbar was a weird, weird thing, but I
Speaker 2: ate it.
Speaker 3: So there is no superbar anymore, but there is if
Speaker 3: you look over there. It was a woman named Anna
Speaker 3: or Anna Ayala, and she is sitting with her in laws,
Speaker 3: her her mother in law or father in law, are
Speaker 3: brother in law, maybe a couple other people, and she
Speaker 3: is about to bite down into a bite of Wendy's
Speaker 3: Chili that she has just ordered at the San Jose
Speaker 3: Wendy's downtown San Jose Wendy's, I believe on March twenty second,
Speaker 3: two thousand and five.
Speaker 2: Yeah, she's in her her late thirties. It's cold in
Speaker 2: San Jose.
Speaker 3: M hmm.
Speaker 2: She's from Las Vegas, so she's not used to this.
Speaker 3: She's actually so she's from San Jose originally, but she's
Speaker 3: moved to Vegas a couple of years ago for well, sure.
Speaker 1: She has lived in Las Vegas lately and has been
Speaker 1: warming in the sun there, right, and Uh is like,
Speaker 1: I don't like this cold. I'm gonna order some chili
Speaker 1: because Wendy's chili is so so good.
Speaker 3: That's meaty and warm, as Ed puts it.
Speaker 1: That's right, And so she sits down she's eating this thing,
Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden, look at her.
Speaker 2: She's just she's she's upset, Josh.
Speaker 3: She's gone berserk. Everybody at the tables got their hands up,
Speaker 3: like whoa, settle down, and she's like just pointed at
Speaker 3: her chili, her chili cup she's reached the bottom of
Speaker 3: and she's saying that there's a finger in her chili. Yeah,
Speaker 3: she just bit into a finger.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she looks like she's about to puke. I didn't
Speaker 1: see her vomit. I didn't either, but in court later
Speaker 1: she would say she did, so maybe we can be
Speaker 1: key witnesses.
Speaker 3: Right. She's going up to the counter demanding I think
Speaker 3: she just said to one of the cashiers, who did
Speaker 3: you kill to get this finger? Which is a weird
Speaker 3: thing to say.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she's yelling at everyone else in the restaurant with chili, saying,
Speaker 1: don't eat that.
Speaker 3: Yepre's fingers.
Speaker 2: That's finger chili.
Speaker 3: That's right, finger chili. No one wants chut chut cha.
Speaker 3: She's starting to try to start a chant, I believe.
Speaker 1: And there's only one guy that's still eating and he said, yeah,
Speaker 1: I ordered the finger chili.
Speaker 3: Right, They said, I think you got mine. So she's
Speaker 3: freaking out things are starting to go down. There's a
Speaker 3: hubbub in the restaurant. Everyone's got every She has everyone's attention.
Speaker 3: She's saying that she just found a finger in her chili.
Speaker 3: The people at the counter are incredulous. They're kind of
Speaker 3: poking at it a little bit. They're saying, I think
Speaker 3: it's a vegetable or whatever. It looks like a carrot
Speaker 3: to me, lady, right, a very pale carrot with a
Speaker 3: fingernail on it. And it's the fingernail really that does
Speaker 3: the trick. After this point, it becomes clear to everyone
Speaker 3: in the Wendy's that there is a finger that this
Speaker 3: woman just found in her chili. There's a fingernail on it.
Speaker 3: It's about an inch and a half a finger from
Speaker 3: the tip to well about an inch and a half down,
Speaker 3: and she just bit down on it and she found
Speaker 3: it in her chili. So the Wendy's employees react swiftly.
Speaker 3: They dump out all the chili. They call the police.
Speaker 3: The police come by and they say, well, this is
Speaker 3: a health department kind of thing, really, And the police leave,
Speaker 3: and the Wendy's employees call the owners of the franchise,
Speaker 3: JEM Management, and they say don't do anything of that finger.
Speaker 3: Put it in the freezer, and we'll be there in
Speaker 3: the morning. And at this point, Anna Alaya leaves or
Speaker 3: Anna Ayala. This is going to be very difficult, because
Speaker 3: I want to say Alaya, she leaves, Her families are
Speaker 3: taking her family members taking pictures of the location, and
Speaker 3: a huge national story has just begun. By ten o'clock
Speaker 3: that night, this happened about seven. By ten o'clock on
Speaker 3: the local news, there's an unconfirmed report of a woman
Speaker 3: who found a finger in her chili at Wendy's.
Speaker 2: And Dave Thomas gets indigestion immediately.
Speaker 3: Well, he'd been dead a few years, so that'd be phenomenal.
Speaker 2: I thought he was alive.
Speaker 3: Then he died in two thousand and two.
Speaker 2: Okay, well he's rolling over in his grave.
Speaker 3: But by this time, you know, he'd really kind of
Speaker 3: made Wendy's like a really loved and respected, you know, restaurant,
Speaker 3: because everybody thought Dave Thomas was so great.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, and as are we out of the way
Speaker 2: back machine? Are we done? Play acting?
Speaker 3: I was serious, but yes we are.
Speaker 2: Well you were seriously play acting. You were Laurence Olivier.
Speaker 3: Maybe I was delusional. I thought we were in that one.
Speaker 2: Okay, So.
Speaker 1: Almost immediately word starts to spread on the news. Obviously,
Speaker 1: and as you might well imagine, the Windy's restaurant chain,
Speaker 1: especially in the area in the Bay Area near San Jose,
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, right, because they are sort of
Speaker 1: famous for their chili.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah. I mean, like, if you want chili at
Speaker 3: a fast food restaurant, you're going to Wendy's because you're
Speaker 3: not going to find it anywhere else. They really planted
Speaker 3: their flag and the chili market.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the old an W's had pretty good chili.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, but you wanted that on a dog.
Speaker 1: Sure, And of course the Midwest still very famous for
Speaker 1: their skyline chili.
Speaker 2: Mm hm, which is delicious?
Speaker 3: Is that? I guess that'd be fast food?
Speaker 2: Huh yeah, I think they actually have skyline chili restaurants.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, which is good. It's quite good, it is.
Speaker 3: But if you're going to go just about anywhere in
Speaker 3: the US, if you have a hankering for chili, you're
Speaker 3: gonna go to Wendy's. But like you said, sales started
Speaker 3: to plummet, and not just like chili sales, all wendy
Speaker 3: sales started to take it hit, especially in the Bay Area,
Speaker 3: like you said, especially in the Western United States. People
Speaker 3: were just kind of grossed out by this whole idea.
Speaker 3: But like I said, the cops had shown up and
Speaker 3: decided it was a health inspector's or a health department's jam.
Speaker 3: They didn't really have anything to do with it. So
Speaker 3: the next morning, the owners of the franchise, the county
Speaker 3: health inspector, they showed up, I think they contacted Wendy's
Speaker 3: communications department, and the gears were starting to move. There
Speaker 3: was something that they had to deal with, and that
Speaker 3: was basically threefold. It was really twofold as far as
Speaker 3: Wendy's was concerned at first, but the third one crept
Speaker 3: in pretty quickly. Whose finger was this? Sure, how did
Speaker 3: the finger get into the chili?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: And then after that, who was this woman who found
Speaker 3: the finger in her chili? And so Wendy's really started
Speaker 3: to focus on the first two because one thing. This
Speaker 3: whole the way that this whole thing played out, the
Speaker 3: cops were very hands off at first. They felt this
Speaker 3: was a health department issue, a public health issue, and
Speaker 3: not a police issue, and basically said, you need to
Speaker 3: go figure this out yourself Wendy's, And so Wendy's had
Speaker 3: to do a lot of extra legwork that they probably
Speaker 3: wouldn't have had to do had the cops decided immediately
Speaker 3: that it was a criminal issue. But in the cops defense,
Speaker 3: it didn't appear immediately to be a criminal issue. It
Speaker 3: appeared to be like a woman found a finger in
Speaker 3: her chili at Wendy's and that's gross, So go figure
Speaker 3: it out Wendy's.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I also bet there was like one guy who literally
Speaker 1: ate went to that specific Wendy's to get chili the
Speaker 1: next day and was like, dude, that's the last place
Speaker 1: you're going to find a finger in your chilli now, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's no way it would happen again.
Speaker 2: What are the chances.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like flying on an airline right after they have
Speaker 3: a crash.
Speaker 2: He's like, you go to Burger King, you're gonna get
Speaker 2: a finger.
Speaker 3: They're going to purposely give you a finger man, don't
Speaker 3: be naive.
Speaker 2: All right, So did you introduce police Chief Rob Davis yet?
Speaker 2: Not yet? All right?
Speaker 1: So this is the guy San Jose police chief that
Speaker 1: would ultimately lead this investigation.
Speaker 3: Later on, though after Wendy's did a lot of the
Speaker 3: initial legwork for him.
Speaker 1: Yes, he would lead the investigation. And he basically was like,
Speaker 1: I got to find out who this lady is because
Speaker 1: Wendy's they're operating on the downlow here and this is
Speaker 1: a sort of a and apparently this is this case
Speaker 1: is taught in classes now about like how to handle
Speaker 1: a crisis as a corporation.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I've seen I've seen it criticized. I've also seen
Speaker 3: it held up as an example of what to do
Speaker 3: 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 and then publicly. What
Speaker 1: they can't do is start to go after this lady
Speaker 1: and be too sort of dismissive of this finger like
Speaker 1: there's no way, lady, this lady's nut, she's whatever, she's
Speaker 1: after money, Like, you can't do that as a public
Speaker 1: facing company. You have to be doing all your due
Speaker 1: diligence sort of quietly, and they really were, They really were.
Speaker 3: So how about this, dude, Let's take a break and
Speaker 3: then we'll come back and we'll talk about the investigation
Speaker 3: that Wendy started. How about that? All right? All right, Chuck. So,
Speaker 3: like you said, Wendy's can't just be like that, lady's
Speaker 3: a liar. There's no way that's our finger. They had
Speaker 3: to basically operate in the background. They couldn't appear like
Speaker 3: they were obstructing the police investigation. They couldn't appear like
Speaker 3: they were smearing ana Ayala, especially because the early reports
Speaker 3: were very sympathetic to this woman too. Everybody was very
Speaker 3: grossed out by this. Sure, but at the same time,
Speaker 3: they had to deal with this issue, and they had
Speaker 3: to get to the bottom of whose finger this was
Speaker 3: and where the finger came from.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And so the obvious first place to start is
Speaker 1: the restaurant itself, the employees there. The very obvious first
Speaker 1: place to start is to see if anyone was missing
Speaker 1: a finger.
Speaker 3: Sure, and that's what they did. They said, show us
Speaker 3: your hands.
Speaker 1: Yeah, everyone looked at everyone's fingers. They were all there,
Speaker 1: and they went all right, so far, so good. They
Speaker 1: would eventually put everyone on staff through a polygraph test,
Speaker 1: which they all passed. They would obviously then they would
Speaker 1: go to the supply chain to see if this thing
Speaker 1: might have because you know, these things happened.
Speaker 3: Rarely.
Speaker 2: They do though, Well, I found five other cases of
Speaker 2: fingers in fast food.
Speaker 1: That were legitimate. Oh yeah, oh wow, So it happens
Speaker 1: up to supply chain. You know, there can be an
Speaker 1: industrial 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 Wendy's superbar.
Speaker 3: Oh my god.
Speaker 2: You know it doesn't happen much, huh. I wouldn't be
Speaker 2: too freaked out.
Speaker 3: I'm still freaked out.
Speaker 2: We'll go over.
Speaker 1: Those at the end. But they're going up the supply chain.
Speaker 1: They're really doing their due diligence. They can't find. They
Speaker 1: offer a reward at first of fifty grand, later one
Speaker 1: hundred grand.
Speaker 3: Well, they set up, yeah, a hotline for tips.
Speaker 1: But they're basically, as time is going on, becoming more
Speaker 1: and more confident that they did not have a finger
Speaker 1: in that chili by their own fault.
Speaker 3: They traced the chill ingredients to seven different suppliers. And
Speaker 3: they got documentation from all seven suppliers that nobody at
Speaker 3: their companies had suffered any kind of finger injury at
Speaker 3: any any recent time. And also, like you said, going
Speaker 3: at the store, doing at any of the nearby stores
Speaker 3: had suffered any finger injury, let alone an amputation. And
Speaker 3: so Wendy's was like, this is this didn't come from us,
Speaker 3: This didn't come from inside our store. And they also
Speaker 3: they kind of ran a simultaneous forensic investigation as well.
Speaker 3: They hired a woman named doctor Lynn Bates who's the
Speaker 3: CEO of a company called Altecha out of Manhattan, Kansas.
Speaker 3: And if you are looking for evidence or study of
Speaker 3: a body part that was found in food, you go
Speaker 3: to doctor Lynn S. Bates and Alteca because they are
Speaker 3: they engage in forensic food microscopy. That's what they do,
Speaker 3: is there. That's their bread and butter, is studying body
Speaker 3: parts found food. And she'd been doing it since nineteen
Speaker 3: eighty six. So Wendy's went to her and said, here's
Speaker 3: a piece of this finger. Was this finger cooked in
Speaker 3: this chili? Whose finger is it? She's like, I can't
Speaker 3: tell you whose finger it is, but I can tell
Speaker 3: you that there is no indication that this finger was
Speaker 3: cooked for three hours in chili at one hundred and
Speaker 3: seventy degrees. It just wasn't. So that was a that
Speaker 3: combined with the Wendy's no Wendy's employer or supplier's employers
Speaker 3: missing a finger, that told Wendy's everything they need to
Speaker 3: know that they were being defrauded.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you would think, just grab a fingerprint police force,
Speaker 1: and they weren't able to.
Speaker 2: They weren't able to.
Speaker 1: They said if they found a hand that they might
Speaker 1: could literally look and compare fingerprints, but they they didn't
Speaker 1: get a good enough print off it to do a
Speaker 1: legitimate database.
Speaker 3: Search, right right, They just had to sit around and
Speaker 3: wait for that hand to show up.
Speaker 2: Because that thing had been cooking in chili for three hours.
Speaker 3: It had not cooked in chili for three hours at
Speaker 3: any rate. So Wendy's knew what was going on. Now
Speaker 3: they had to go to the cops and say, we're
Speaker 3: being defrauded. Not only did they have the search for
Speaker 3: the missing finger investigation internally, and they hired Lynn Bates
Speaker 3: to do forensic work on the finger itself, they also
Speaker 3: hired a detective to start looking around at Anna Ayala,
Speaker 3: and the detective turned up some very interesting stuff about her.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he was like, wait a minute, this woman has
Speaker 1: filed at least thirteen civil lawsuits, some against major corporations,
Speaker 1: and they He probably could have stopped there, and Wendy's
Speaker 1: would have just been like Dave Thomas from the grave
Speaker 1: would have said, see there, she's no good.
Speaker 3: That's a good Dave Thomas. So I think he would
Speaker 3: have said, like, she should still get the benefit of
Speaker 3: the doubt.
Speaker 1: I don't know, man, when someone is this as a
Speaker 1: pattern of litigious behaviors like this.
Speaker 3: Well maybe he finished with proved me wrong one.
Speaker 1: There were a couple of notable ones that it's sort
Speaker 1: of frustratingly hard to find information. She claimed that she
Speaker 1: won a thirty thousand dollars settlement from El Polio Loco
Speaker 1: from medical bills from her daughter getting sick from Samonella.
Speaker 1: Al Pollo Loco has always been on record saying never happened.
Speaker 1: We did not give that lady a dime, right GM.
Speaker 1: She sued GM because the front wheel of her car
Speaker 1: came off and there was an accident, and that suit
Speaker 1: was dismissed with prejudice. When she fired her lawyer was
Speaker 1: a no show in court.
Speaker 3: Oh is that what that means? No?
Speaker 1: No, no with prejudice means you can't bring it back.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, so you can't. She can't say, well, well
Speaker 1: I didn't show up and my lawyer was bad, so let's.
Speaker 2: Do this again.
Speaker 3: Okay, I gotcha, I get so.
Speaker 1: Basically it was dead in the water. So she suit
Speaker 1: a former employer for her sexual harassment. I'm not even
Speaker 1: going to comment on that one because I have no
Speaker 1: idea that could very well have been legitimate.
Speaker 3: That one struck me as possibly legitimate, but she dropped
Speaker 3: it right.
Speaker 1: She lawyered up immediately with a chili finger, and everything
Speaker 1: made Chief Rob Davis very suspicious. And then this guy
Speaker 1: that lived with her family named Ken Bono or Bono?
Speaker 2: Would you say Bono?
Speaker 3: I've been saying Bono hasn't even occurred to me. It
Speaker 3: could be Bono. Ken Bono's related to Bono Ken Bono.
Speaker 3: Because the cops are starting to ask questions. At this point,
Speaker 3: they do official investigations, They search her house. She claims
Speaker 3: that they held a gun to her head, ransacked her home,
Speaker 3: and like abused her daughter. Yeah, quite a charge for
Speaker 3: a finger chili house investigation. There's a picture of her
Speaker 3: and her daughter in the driveway talking to a reporter,
Speaker 3: and her daughter's got like her arm in a sling,
Speaker 3: like the kindest thing you just go by at at
Speaker 3: the drug store.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
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,
Speaker 1: he said that this finger came from our aunt, our
Speaker 1: deceased aunt.
Speaker 3: It's her finger, which is a weird thing to say,
Speaker 3: especially because Anna, I all said, all of my aunts
Speaker 3: are alive. I don't know what this guy's talking about,
Speaker 3: even though he lives in my house.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what was he? Was he trying to get money?
Speaker 3: I don't know what.
Speaker 2: I can't figure out.
Speaker 3: I couldn't find much on that guy. I don't know
Speaker 3: what the deal was. I also just saw references to
Speaker 3: a rumor that the media had been reporting on that
Speaker 3: it was her dead ant's finger. So I didn't see
Speaker 3: how it came from him or what he was trying
Speaker 3: to do with that. But that was a thing. But
Speaker 3: that was just kind of like a little side thread
Speaker 3: that I think also made the cops a little more
Speaker 3: suspicious too, Like that's just a weird thing to say,
Speaker 3: even joking.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but they did actually get While it didn't lead
Speaker 1: to whose finger it was, that tip line did yield
Speaker 1: some stuff at first, right.
Speaker 3: So yeah, So, like you said, Wendy set up a
Speaker 3: tip line, a hotline that you could call in, and
Speaker 3: what they were looking for, specifically ostensibly was whose finger
Speaker 3: it was. That's what they wanted information the owner of
Speaker 3: the finger. But they were taking any and all tips
Speaker 3: that people called in, and they started offering fifty grand,
Speaker 3: like you said, they later up to one hundred grand,
Speaker 3: and it started to yield some tips, like pretty much
Speaker 3: off the bat. I think the San Jose Police and
Speaker 3: Wendy's is funneling this information to the cops as it
Speaker 3: comes in, like as good tips come in. But two
Speaker 3: very early on came in from what the San Jose
Speaker 3: Police said. There were two different people who supposedly did
Speaker 3: not know each other, who told very similar stories about
Speaker 3: how Anna Ayala had told them that she was fleecing Wendy's,
Speaker 3: that all of this was just a fraud for money
Speaker 3: to extort money from Wendy's and a lost suit. So
Speaker 3: that that combined with all the evidence that Wendy's had
Speaker 3: gathered that the finger had not come from inside their store.
Speaker 3: All of the on a Iowa's background, All of that
Speaker 3: put together really turned the tide not just on a
Speaker 3: police investigation, but also on the media against Anna Iola.
Speaker 3: And she had started this, she had created a huge
Speaker 3: media circus around this issue. Like she went on Good
Speaker 3: Morning America and I could not find I think Good
Speaker 3: Morning America just took the video.
Speaker 2: Down, probably just burned it because she just.
Speaker 3: Went on and lied, lied, lied through her teeth about
Speaker 3: what had happened, and just pointed at Wendy's and said, like,
Speaker 3: these guys screwed up, and this is the most disgusting
Speaker 3: thing that could happen to somebody, And I'm torn up
Speaker 3: inside about it, and they should pay on on national
Speaker 3: news about a week after the incident.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So, like you said, this is all playing out
Speaker 1: pretty quickly. It's all over the news, it's all over
Speaker 1: late night talk show comedy, just bad joke after bad
Speaker 1: joke coming out of j Leno's mouth. I won't even
Speaker 1: repeat the one that ed included.
Speaker 3: I like the letterman one. Did you see lettermans?
Speaker 2: What was it?
Speaker 3: He said that she been spotted going back at Wendy's
Speaker 3: and ordering chili again because she was going back to
Speaker 3: collect all five.
Speaker 2: That's good.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you gotta give it up for Letterman.
Speaker 2: What was Leno's something about him?
Speaker 3: They don't. The chili now comes with fingernail clippers, the
Speaker 3: side of fingernail clippers, and.
Speaker 1: That really just encapulates, encapsulates the difference between those two men.
Speaker 3: It does, although they.
Speaker 2: Have their joke writers, but still the love.
Speaker 3: Of cars, I think is also a big differentiator. Yeh,
Speaker 3: I don't think Letterman really cares about cars.
Speaker 2: Shout out to Brian Kylie and Rob Kutner.
Speaker 3: Shout out to the mid nineties Letterman book of Top
Speaker 3: ten lists that helped shape be as a human being.
Speaker 1: Brian and Rob are Conan O'Brien's monologue joke writers and
Speaker 1: have been for many many years.
Speaker 3: Did I tell you you? Me and I went to
Speaker 3: see Conan O'Brien live with Ron Funches and a couple
Speaker 3: of other people. Now it was so good and we
Speaker 3: actually turned out we were stating we were sitting next
Speaker 3: to a member of the s YSK army throughout the show.
Speaker 2: Oh no way.
Speaker 3: Yeah. He was like are you Josh? And you and
Speaker 3: me we were like, yeah, he was a good, good guy, good.
Speaker 1: Kids like, I'm u me, but that's not Josh right.
Speaker 1: He's like, well that's weird. I'm suspicious. Now 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 dragnet
Speaker 1: is sort of closing in thanks to Wendy's investigations, thanks
Speaker 1: to the cops getting involved, and uh, miss Ayala is
Speaker 1: starting to feel the heat and like anyone who And
Speaker 1: I think the cat's out of the back now, right.
Speaker 2: I think it was put the finger in the chilly Yeah.
Speaker 1: Anytime someone does something like that, it seems like two
Speaker 1: things happen. They bragged to their friends because they're dummies
Speaker 1: to begin with, and then that net starts to close
Speaker 1: and it all starts to fall apart.
Speaker 3: Right. So her response, and this is a pretty human response,
Speaker 3: she basically said, once the media spotlight went from sympathetic
Speaker 3: to her to wait a minute, who are you again?
Speaker 3: And how do you explain this thing and that thing
Speaker 3: and all this, she.
Speaker 2: Was like never mind.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's basically what she said. She said, You know,
Speaker 3: I can't handle this media spotlight or anything anymore. So
Speaker 3: I'm just gonna drop my lawsuit against Wendy's. We'll just
Speaker 3: forget all about this, And Wendy said, no, we're not
Speaker 3: gonna just forget all about this. No, of course, let's
Speaker 3: take a break, shall we. Yeah, we're gonna take a break.
Speaker 3: So I can't surely when Anna Iola was like, Okay,
Speaker 3: I'm just gonna drop the lawsuit and this will go away,
Speaker 3: there had to only have been maybe one and a
Speaker 3: quarter percent of her brain that thought that that was
Speaker 3: actually going to work, that was actually going to go away.
Speaker 3: She seems like street wise and savvy enough to me
Speaker 3: that she knew it probably wasn't just going to go away,
Speaker 3: that that was nothing but hope, right, I guess I'm
Speaker 3: curious about that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know, man, But like the more that
Speaker 1: they poke into her private life, then you learn that
Speaker 1: she and her husband, James Placentia, had there was a
Speaker 1: and this one's hard to get information onto.
Speaker 2: From what I can.
Speaker 1: Tell, is they sold a trailer, a trailer park trailer
Speaker 1: that did not belong to them.
Speaker 3: Yes, for eleven thousand dollars. She did specifically, I don't
Speaker 3: know that he was involved. He may have even owned
Speaker 3: the trailer, but regardless, she did not own the trailers
Speaker 3: sold it to a woman for eleven thousand dollars, and
Speaker 3: later on the woman and her children were evicted from
Speaker 3: the trailer that they thought they owned that they didn't own.
Speaker 1: Yes, they also learned that her husband, I guess from
Speaker 1: her previous marriage, owed a lot of money and child support.
Speaker 1: And so things are starting to fall into place to
Speaker 1: where they're like, this lady is always making up stories
Speaker 1: and suing companies. She's always looking for that get rich angle.
Speaker 1: Her husband owes a ton of money four hundred k,
Speaker 1: and so this is all sorting. They're starting to finger her,
Speaker 1: if you will, for this crime. That's the worst pun
Speaker 1: ever we met.
Speaker 3: We all, I thought we were going to make it
Speaker 3: through this, but no, I've even been saying tipline about
Speaker 3: one finger ignoring it. I know you did, but okay,
Speaker 3: all right, it's done. It's out there.
Speaker 1: So they finally, like you said, even though she was like, oh,
Speaker 1: let's just forget about it, they're like, no, no, no, we
Speaker 1: can't do that. And then there enters a lady that
Speaker 1: just kind of and it didn't end up having the
Speaker 1: hugest impact on the case itself, but it is worth
Speaker 1: mentioning this woman named Sandy Almond. This is a little strange.
Speaker 1: So this is a woman who owned exotic cats, big cats, leopards, jaguars, tigers.
Speaker 3: I think, is that how we're saying jaguars now jaguar? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Wow, it's how the brit says it on the commercial.
Speaker 3: Is it the year in sales event up in here?
Speaker 1: Yeah, the Jaguar X twelve. So this lady owns these
Speaker 1: big cats. This is not too far from Vegas where
Speaker 1: she lives in parump Nevada, I guess, or is it
Speaker 1: CALIFORNI on the California side, you know, I think it's okay.
Speaker 3: I don't know actually know that you mentioned it.
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.
Speaker 2: We will deal with it.
Speaker 1: And during this transfer of animals, she is attacked by
Speaker 1: a spotted leopard and it bites off her finger. Yes,
Speaker 1: and she says, she comes forward and says, I think
Speaker 1: that is my finger.
Speaker 3: No, No, I think Actually a person who is at
Speaker 3: the wildlife rescue at the time, was the one who
Speaker 3: called the tip line with that one.
Speaker 2: Oh, I thought, because she wanted to take a DNA
Speaker 2: test and everything.
Speaker 3: Oh I didn't see that, Okay, all right, cool. So
Speaker 3: 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 uh huh, but she got
Speaker 1: involved such that she wanted to take a DNA test
Speaker 1: to find out if that was her finger.
Speaker 3: Gotcha, Okay? Cool? Cool? Well, yeah, because she had said
Speaker 3: that the last time she'd seen it it was on
Speaker 3: ice in the emergency room. So I guess she wasn't
Speaker 3: the sentimental ties hypoo's like I want my finger back,
Speaker 3: would you?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, floated from aldehyde.
Speaker 3: You me would probably have that thing gilded and wear
Speaker 3: it around her neck. Yeah, I'd be like, that's my
Speaker 3: finger on ubi's neck. Check it out. But so the
Speaker 3: whole thing was just a red herring though a blind
Speaker 3: alley right, like it went nowhere.
Speaker 2: No, it was not her finger.
Speaker 3: No. There were some other tips that came in about
Speaker 3: the finger. There were the Mexican authorities, I guess just
Speaker 3: over the border got involved because it was rumored that
Speaker 3: an incident with a ranch hand losing a finger in
Speaker 3: Mexico had been the source of the finger, as even
Speaker 3: as Anna Iola, who, by the way, that whole tip
Speaker 3: about the trailer sail. Yeah, the trailer scam that came
Speaker 3: in from Wendy's hotline as well. Oh really, by this time,
Speaker 3: I believe it was day twenty two. No, I'm sorry,
Speaker 3: it was day thirty thirty two. I believe about a
Speaker 3: month after the incident originally happened. Ana Ayala and Jamie
Speaker 3: Palencia Plazentia, her husband, were both arrested in Las Vegas,
Speaker 3: him for the child support payments failure to pay child support,
Speaker 3: her for that trailer scam. And so while they're on
Speaker 3: ice in Las Vegas, Wendy's is still conducting this investigation.
Speaker 3: San Jose are still conducting this investigation, and they've got them,
Speaker 3: they have them on this other stuff. But I guess
Speaker 3: they just kind of kept them from running and that's
Speaker 3: why they arrested them, knowing that they were eventually going
Speaker 3: to build the case. I'm not sure, but that's exactly
Speaker 3: what happened, because I think about fifty two days after
Speaker 3: she walked into that Wendy's and put the finger in
Speaker 3: the chili and took that bite. They charged them for
Speaker 3: grand theft, for basically defrauding Wendy's.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and at this point, as far as the police
Speaker 1: were concerned, they're like, we don't even need to know
Speaker 1: who's 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, right if we
Speaker 1: can actually pinpoint whose finger this is and exactly how
Speaker 1: this happened and let everybody know what went on.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so they they actually that's when they up the
Speaker 3: the reward from fifty thousand to one hundred thousand, right,
Speaker 3: that's right, And that's when they hit the jackpot, which
Speaker 3: is ironically, they got two callers on the one hundred
Speaker 3: thousand dollars line.
Speaker 2: Go ahead, collar, you're on the one hundred thousand dollars
Speaker 2: chili finger line, right.
Speaker 3: And then for the next thirty second he's like, hello,
Speaker 3: am I on Can you hear me? Yes, you're on
Speaker 3: You're on collar, Collar, Am I live right now? They
Speaker 3: call the two people called. One to this day, as
Speaker 3: far as I can tell, has remained anonymous. The other
Speaker 3: one was a guy named Mike Casey, and Mike Casey
Speaker 3: owned a company called Lamb Asphalt out of Las Vegas, Nevada.
Speaker 3: And he happened to be the employer of Jamie Pleazentia.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 3: And he said, it's weird because you arrested one of
Speaker 3: my employees, one of my longtime employees, for this scam.
Speaker 3: And I also have another employee named Brian Rossiter who
Speaker 3: lost a finger not too long ago, and I think
Speaker 3: they might be connected. I think that might be Brian
Speaker 3: Rossiter's finger. And that's how the whole thing finally came
Speaker 3: crashing down because they got a hold of Brian Rossiter,
Speaker 3: they got a they gave him a DNA test, They
Speaker 3: matched it to the DNA taken from the finger, and
Speaker 3: they said it's Brian Rossiter's finger. Brian Rossiter worked with
Speaker 3: Jamie Plazentia. Jamie Plazentia was married to Anna Ayola. Ana
Speaker 3: Ayola found a finger in her chili ipso facto, something's
Speaker 3: rotten in Denmark and that's how it stands.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's even a little weirder when you find
Speaker 1: out the details. So Brian is at work, someone slams
Speaker 1: a tailgate of the truck on his hand, cuts an
Speaker 1: inch and a half off of his finger.
Speaker 2: Can you imagine the dude no 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 and it seems like they're both always looking to
Speaker 1: scam somebody.
Speaker 3: And they're looking for the angle.
Speaker 1: He sees this finger and he goes, hey, you owe
Speaker 1: me money. Some people say it was fifty bucks. We
Speaker 1: don't know for sure.
Speaker 3: I saw a hundred almost everywhere.
Speaker 2: Okay, so let's say it's one hundred.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 1: He's like, you give me that finger and we'll just
Speaker 1: call it square. And not only that, my friend, but
Speaker 1: if you ever hear about this finger in the news,
Speaker 1: keep it quiet, and I will give you a quarter
Speaker 1: of a million dollars at some point in the future.
Speaker 3: Yep. That's what they call the carrot and the other carrot.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so he said, just drip some blood on this
Speaker 1: roof shingle and that will be our contract.
Speaker 3: Right right right to sign X with your stub, your
Speaker 3: bloody stub.
Speaker 2: How this old used roof shingle.
Speaker 3: I saw, actually I saw that he did go to
Speaker 3: the hospital and came back to the work site with
Speaker 3: his amputated finger. And that's what Jamie pleasidants. He was like, hey,
Speaker 3: I'm sure he did.
Speaker 2: What are you gonna do with that any sense at all? Yeah,
Speaker 2: that he would just be like, wait a minute.
Speaker 3: So Brian Rossiter gives him his finger, and that's where
Speaker 3: the whole thing began, just a couple months before, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think didn't Rossiter himself also called the
Speaker 1: tip line.
Speaker 3: I didn't see that anywhere.
Speaker 1: Okay, I heard he called the tip line himself because
Speaker 1: he knew at this point he was getting no money
Speaker 1: out of the scam, so he thought, let me try
Speaker 1: and get this hundred grand at least, right, And Wendy's
Speaker 1: never would cop to whether or not he got any
Speaker 1: tip line money, right.
Speaker 3: And so Mike Casey, the guy who from all from
Speaker 3: everything that it seems he was innocent of this, he
Speaker 3: just happened to put two and two together because he
Speaker 3: knew the guys. He said Originally, Hey, you know, my
Speaker 3: asphalt company maintains the lots of a few Wendy's around here,
Speaker 3: and they've always been good to me, so I wanted
Speaker 3: to help out. That was an article in May. An
Speaker 3: article in September is Mike Casey saying, you know, Wendy's
Speaker 3: never paid me that money for the hotline. So I
Speaker 3: don't know if he ever got it, but from what
Speaker 3: I saw, he was going to have to split it
Speaker 3: with the one other anonymous caller. I don't know if
Speaker 3: that was Brian Rossiter or not. Maybe Brian Rossterter was
Speaker 3: scared that Jamie Plasencia might do something if he found
Speaker 3: out that he had been he had tipped him off
Speaker 3: for what. But supposedly Mike Casey and this anonymous caller
Speaker 3: were going to split that one hundred grand. So whether
Speaker 3: Wendy's actually pay that money or not, that remains to
Speaker 3: be seen. I don't know. I didn't see that anywhere.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 1: In the end, a Yella and her husband, she got
Speaker 1: sentenced to nine years, he got sentenced to twelve because
Speaker 1: I think they piled on him for the probably child
Speaker 1: support right or was it the trailer scam?
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, he got three and a third years for
Speaker 3: the child support thing.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, I don't know how long he actually served.
Speaker 1: I think she only served about four of that nine.
Speaker 1: She later revealed some more details, including that she did
Speaker 1: cook the finger. Yeah, apparently it was not a It
Speaker 1: wasn't a raw finger, nor though was it cooked in
Speaker 1: one hundred and seventy degree chili for three hours.
Speaker 2: 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 they didn't think I would think of this right,
Speaker 1: and cooked up the finger a little bit.
Speaker 3: One thing that she didn't think of the chuck was
Speaker 3: she didn't bite the finger, and they found out pretty
Speaker 3: quickly through forensic investigation that there was no bite in
Speaker 3: the finger.
Speaker 1: Nor did she throw up in the restaurant like she
Speaker 1: said she did, because there were people in the restaurant
Speaker 1: that were like, no, she didn't vomit that I saw,
Speaker 1: and employees were like, no, she didn't throw up that
Speaker 1: I saw.
Speaker 3: Her father in law and mother in law both said
Speaker 3: that they saw her throw up, But yeah, there was
Speaker 3: no evidence of vomit anywhere in the bathroom or around
Speaker 3: her table or anything.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they did a pretty bad job.
Speaker 3: Yeah they did. I was gonna use a nasty word
Speaker 3: to characterize it, but I guess the family show so well.
Speaker 1: These are the worst kind of people, man, These litigious
Speaker 1: like just like work for your money man, going around
Speaker 1: sueing corporations.
Speaker 3: I know. So wendy supposedly lost two point five million
Speaker 3: dollars in verifiable lost money. They had to cut people's hours.
Speaker 3: This is another thing that kind of gets left off
Speaker 3: a lot. They had to cut the hours of the
Speaker 3: employees in the Bay Area, in particular because there was
Speaker 3: such little foot traffic coming through their stores. So when
Speaker 3: they were convicted and sentenced, Jamie Plazentia and Anna Ayala
Speaker 3: were sentenced to pay back one hundred and seventy thousand
Speaker 3: plus dollars in lost wages to the Wendy's employees. Oh
Speaker 3: and they were also ordered to pay five hundred thousand
Speaker 3: to jem Management, who owned the Wendy's, and then like
Speaker 3: another another substantial amount to Wendy's if they ever profited
Speaker 3: from the crime.
Speaker 1: Man, bad people. She was banned from Wendy's, which I
Speaker 1: don't know how you enforce that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was wondering that myself. Actually, it seems like
Speaker 3: I don't know if there's every Wendy's has a picture
Speaker 3: of her or something like that.
Speaker 1: I know what's sports stadiums They do that when people
Speaker 1: are banned, and that is a little more enforceable because
Speaker 1: like you can literally just have everyone be aware of
Speaker 1: that person. That's like checking tickets and things. But you
Speaker 1: can't How can you keep someone from coming into any
Speaker 1: Wendy's anywhere?
Speaker 3: I don't know. They can try. At least they can
Speaker 3: send a message by saying you can't come here any longer.
Speaker 1: Arbi's two fingers two thousand and four, twenty twelve, No
Speaker 1: Cole's Frozen Custard in Wilmington, North Carolina, finger two thousand
Speaker 1: and five. Oh Media Friday's Hamburger had a finger in
Speaker 1: two thousand and six. Wow, And those are all verified
Speaker 1: and they found, you know, like it was in the
Speaker 1: supply chain, like someone lost a finger and it got
Speaker 1: mixed in And it's very just very unfortunate. I'm sure
Speaker 1: there were quiet settlements on those.
Speaker 3: I'm sure too. It's bizarre. I had no idea that
Speaker 3: that happened. I thought it was almost always either a
Speaker 3: case of mistaken identity or a hoax. I didn't realize
Speaker 3: that actually really happened, you know. Oh yeah, well that's
Speaker 3: the Wendy's Chili finger caper. If you ever wanted to
Speaker 3: know about it, now you do, and we're glad that
Speaker 3: you do. We're glad we're the ones that told you.
Speaker 3: And if you want to know more about it, go
Speaker 3: read contemporary articles at the time. It's awesome just to
Speaker 3: see something like that unfold. It's so cool. And since
Speaker 3: I said that, it's time for listener, Mayle.
Speaker 2: And hey, shout out to Wendy's.
Speaker 1: I'm sure I don't know if they like people still
Speaker 1: talking about this or not, but they did not put
Speaker 1: a finger in anyone's chili.
Speaker 2: Yeah, good point to make that clear.
Speaker 3: Good point.
Speaker 1: All are you even gonna call this Adidas Puma? Hey, guys,
Speaker 1: just finished listening to the feud between Addie and Rudy Dossler.
Speaker 1: I wanted to say, I really enjoyed it. My dad
Speaker 1: is actually from Hertzogenerach. We were an Adidas family through
Speaker 1: and through, and my godmother and aunt, Helga worked for
Speaker 1: Adidas as an administrative assistant for years. In addition to this,
Speaker 1: almost jumped out of my seat. When you mentioned the
Speaker 1: mayor of Herzo, you spoke of doctor Gerrman Hawker and
Speaker 1: how he repped a soccer match wearing one Adidas shoe
Speaker 1: in one Puma.
Speaker 2: My uncle Hans was the mayor right before Hawker was
Speaker 2: Oh cool.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I knew you wouldn't be referring to him because
Speaker 1: he wouldn't have been caught dead in even one Puma
Speaker 1: because of my aunt's work at the opposing shop. I
Speaker 1: didn't wear Puma gear at myself until I was grown
Speaker 1: and could buy it myself, and my entire German family
Speaker 1: called me a trader. And this was in the early
Speaker 1: two thousand, so the tension is still real.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: I'm sure it was lighthearted at least I hope it
Speaker 1: was okay. In any case, I just want to let
Speaker 1: you know your research was spot on. Billy love hearing
Speaker 1: about something I knew a little bit about. By the way,
Speaker 1: I also use your show in my classroom teaching twelfth
Speaker 1: grade government in Civics, and the kids.
Speaker 3: Love it nice.
Speaker 1: So a shout out to Jennifer Wessner Gajo at Thompson Stations,
Speaker 1: Tennessee and your senior government class.
Speaker 3: Well. Thank you, Mss Gajo. And class.
Speaker 2: That's probably not pronounced right.
Speaker 3: Gaujo.
Speaker 2: I have no idea.
Speaker 3: Gaucho ganev, Yeah, gan show Ganev. That's what it is.
Speaker 3: If you want to get in touch with us to
Speaker 3: say hi about old episode or for whatever reason, you
Speaker 3: can go on to stuff youshould Know dot com, check
Speaker 3: out our social media links, and you can also send
Speaker 3: us an email to stuff podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
Speaker 2: more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 2: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.