The Great Finger in the Wendy’s Chili Caper

would have chosen Tawny kitay In for me. Yeah. That was a very ham fisted way to set up an in show mention of our three shows next week. Oh yeah, next, it's actually lost on me, Chuck next Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. It's apparently lost on the Pacific Northwest because no one's coming next Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. We will be in Seattle, Portland and in Francisco on January sixteen and seventeen at the More Theater, Revolution Hall and the Castro for Sketch Fest.

And uh, you have a Into the World live Friday night in San Francisco, and I have a movie Crush live on Saturday afternoon in San Francisco. I also have a Brooklyn End of the World one two on the twenty four, just f y. I. Hey, let's not get carried away here, all right, But those are the shows we have coming up everyone, so uh, come on out.

There's still great tickets left at all three of these venues, uh and all five probably I don't I'm not sold out for movie crushing so uh and especially those uh into the world of movie crush shows your best chance to hang out and talk to us personally, because they are more intimate venues, like I wear a neglige Well, Busy Phillips is there, so I'm gonna have on my my dinner jacket. Oh very nice, trying to impress her with my tuxedo, which is not impressive. Tuxedo and jeans

is a it's a it's a look. So get all the information at s Y s k live dot com or for the sketch Fest shows. Just go to the s F Sketch Fest site and come out and support us everyone and shake our hand, pat us on the back, or spit on our shoes. Don't do that. Don't do that, spit between our shoes. Just make it close. You know, if you really hate us spit between our shoes. There you go, that's gonna end up on a T shirt. I have a feeling. All right, let's talk about chili fingers,

all right. So, um back in two thousand five. Actually it's getting the way back machine. Go watch this thing, go down way back machine just for this short distance. Yeah, I mean, it's not like we can walk to two thousand five. This is actually kind of great, though, because when you're forty eight, almost to go back thirteen years, I want to go back and do it all over. So all of a sudden, I'm thirty five, which I thought was old. Yeah, but man, I'd love to be

thirty five right now. I'm pretty happy with forty two. I've got to say, I'm not quite I'm not quite happy with the kind of catchers mit that my face is turning into. But everything else I'm pretty glad about. Yeah. Just wait, just wait, Okay, you're staring down the barrel of fifty and you're going, geez, I only got like fifteen more good years left. That's so not true. Don't you know? Fifties the new thirty five? Is it? Do you know what's funny is all the people in this

Windy's in San Jose. We just showed up at her. Looking at it's like, what are these guys talking about? I know they're like, get your superbar order underway. Yeah, they're like, why don't you guys just be quiet and listen to chumbawamba like everybody else's right now. I don't think they had superbar in two thousand five. That was more like the eighties and nineties. But still, what was it? Superbar? Yeah, don't you don't remember that? No, Windy's in the eighties.

Oh yeah, the superbar, which was this weird combination of tacos and pasta and salad and baked potatoes and baked potatoes all just like whatever you want. I forgot all about that, man, what a good idea. Yeah, the superbar was a weird, weird thing, but I ate it. So

there is no superbar anymore. But there is. If you look over, there's a woman named Anna or Anna Ayala, and she is sitting with her in laws, her her mother in law, her father in law, a brother in law, maybe a couple other people, um, and she is about to bite down into a bite of Wendy's chili that she has just ordered at the San Jose Um Wendy's downtown San Jose. Wendy's I believe March two, two thousand five. Yeah, she's in her her late thirties. It's cold in San Jose.

She's from Las Vegas, so she's not used to this. She's actually so she's from San Jose originally, but she's moved to Vegas a couple of years ago. For she has lived in Law Vegas lately and has been warming in the sun there, and uh, it's like, I don't like this cold. I'm gonna order some chili because Wendy's chili is so so good. It's meaty and warm as it puts it. That's right. And so she sits down, she's eating this thing, and then all of a sudden,

look at her. She's just she's she's upset, Josh, she's gone berserk. Everybody at the tables get their hands up, like WHOA settled down, and she's like just pointed at her chili, her chili cup, which she's reached the bottom of, and she's saying that there's a finger in her chili because she's just bit into a finger. Yeah, she looks like she's about to puke. Um. I didn't see her vomit. I didn't either, but in court later she would say

she did, so maybe we can be key witnesses. Right, she's going up to the counter demanding I think she just said to one of the cashiers, who did you kill to get this finger? Which is a weird thing to say. Yeah, she's yelling. Then everyone else in the restaurant with chili saying, don't eat that fingers. That's finger chili. That's right, finger chili no one wants. She's starting to try to start a chant, I believe. And there's only

one guy that's still eating. And he said, yeah, I ordered the finger chili, right, He said, I think you got mine. So she's freaking out. Things are starting to go down. There's a hubbub in the restaurant. Everyone's got every She has everyone's attention. She's saying that she just found a finger in her chili. The people at the counter are incredulous. They're kind of poking at it a little bit. They're saying, I think it's a vegetable or whatever.

It looks like a carrot to me, lady, right, A very pale carrot with a fingernail on it, and it's the fingernail really that does the trick. After this point, it becomes clear to everyone in the Wendy's that there is a finger that this woman just found in her chili. There's a fingernail on it. It's about an inch and a half of a finger from the tip to well about an inch and a half down and she just bit down on it and she found it in her chili. So the Wendy's employees reacts with they dump out all

the chili, they call, they call the police. The police come by and they say, well, this is a health department kind of thing, really, And the police leave, and the Wendy's employees called the owners of the franchise, J. E. M. Management, and they say, don't do anything that finger. Put it in the freezer and we'll be there in the morning. And at this point, Anna Leah leaves or Anna Ayala.

This is going to be very difficult, because I want to say Elia, she leaves, Her families are taking her family members are taking pictures of the location, and a huge national story has just begun. By ten o'clock that night. This happened about seven. By ten o'clock on the local news, there's an unconfirmed report of a woman who found a finger in her chili at Wendy's, and Dave Thomas gets indigestion immediately. Well, he'd been dead a few years, so

that'd be phenomenal. I thought he was alive. Then he died in two thousand two. Okay, Well he's rolling over in his grave. But by this time, you know, he'd really kind of made Wendy's like a really loved and respected, you know, restaurant, because everybody thought Dave Thomas was so great. Well, yeah, and as are we out of the way back machine? Are we done? Play acting? I was serious, but yes we are. Well you were seriously play acting. You were

Laurence Olivier. Maybe I was delusional. I thought we were in that one. Okay, so uh immediate, almost immediately, words starts to spread on the news. Obviously, and as you might well imagine the Windy's restaurant chain, especially in the in the area in the Bay area near San Jose, um, it really starts to take a business hit. As you would imagine, people are not like, oh, they found a

finger in some Wendy's chili. That really reminds me how much I love Wendy's chili, Right, let's go out and get a hot cup, because they are sort of famous for their chili. Oh yeah. I mean, like, if you want chili at a fast food restaurant, you're going to Wendy's because you're not gonna find it anywhere else. They really planted their flag on the chili market. Yeah, the old an W's had pretty good chili. Oh yeah, but

you wanted that on a dog. Sure. And and of course the Midwest still very famous for their skyline chili, which is delicious. Is that I guess i'd be fast food? Huh yeah, I think they actually have skyline chili restaurants. Yeah, yeah, which is good. It's quite good. It is. Um. But if you're going to go just about anywhere in the US you have a hankering for chili, you're gonna go

to Wendy's. But, like you said, sales started to plummet, and not just like chili sales, all wendy sales started to take it hit, especially in the Bay Area, like you said, especially in in the Western United States. People were just kind of grossed out by this whole idea. Um. But like I said, the the the cops had shown up and decided it was a health inspectors or a health departments jam. They didn't really have anything to do

with it. So the next morning, uh, the owners of the franchise, the county health inspector, they showed up, I think they contacted Wendy's communications department, and the gears were starting to move. There was something that they had to deal with, and that was basically threefold. It was really twofold as far as Wendy's was concerned at first, but the third one crept in pretty quickly. Whose finger was this?

How did the finger get into the chili? And then after that who was this woman who who found the finger in her chili? And so Wendy's really started to focus on the first two because um one thing that this whole the way that this whole thing played out,

the cops were very hands off at first. They felt this was a health department issue, a public health issue, and not a police issue, and basically said you need to go figure this out yourself Wendy's and so Wendy's had to do a lot of extra leg work that they probably wouldn't have had to do had the cops decided immediately that it was a criminal issue. But in the cops defense, it didn't appear immediately to be a

criminal issue. It appeared to be like a woman found a finger in her chili at Wendy's and that's gross, so go figure it out Wendy's. Yeah. I also bet there was like one guy who literally ate went to that specific Wendy's to get chili the next day and was like, dude, that's the last place you're going to find a finger in your chili. Now, there's no way it would happen again. What are the chances. Yeah, like flying on an airline right after they have a crash.

He's like, you go to Burger King, you're gonna get a finger. They're gonna purposely give you a finger. Man, don't be naive. Al Right, So did you introduce police Chief Rob Davis? Yet? Not yet? All right, So this is the guy San Jose police chief that would ultimately lead this investigation later on, though after Wendy's did a lot of the initial legwork for him. Yes, he would lead the investigation, and he uh he. Basically it was like, I gotta find out who this lady is because Wendy's

they're operating on the downlow here. Uh. And this this is a sort of a and apparently this is this case is taught in classes now about like how to handle a crisis as a corporation. Yeah, I've seen I've seen it criticized. I've also seen it held up as a as an example of what to do too well. I mean, here's what Wendy's can and can't do. What they can do is quietly throw a lot of money at this investigation on their own, uh, and then publicly.

What they can't do is is start to go after this lady and be too sort of um dismissive of this finger like there's no way, lady, this lady's nuts, she's whatever, she's after money, Like, you can't do that as a public facing company. You have to be doing all your due diligence sort of quietly. And they really were, They really were. So how how about this, dude, Let's take a break and then we'll come back and we'll

talk about the investigation that Wendy started. How about that? Chuck? Alright, Chuck, So, like you said, Wendy's can't just be like that lady's a liar. There's no way, that's our finger. Um. They had to basically operate in the background. They couldn't appear like they were obstructing the police investigation. They couldn't appear like they were smearing uh Anna ayala, especially because the early reports were very sympathetic to this woman too. Everybody's

very grossed out by this sure. Um. But at the same time, they had they had to deal with this issue, and they had to get to the bottom of whose finger was and where the finger came from. Yeah, And so the obvious first place to start is the restaurant itself. Uh, the employees there. The very obvious first place to start is to see if anyone was missing a finger. And that's what they did. They said, show us your hands. Yeah, everyone looked at the everyone's fingers. They were all there,

and they went all right, so far, so good. Uh. They would eventually put everyone on staff through a polygraph test um, which they all passed. Uh. They would obviously then they would go to up the supply chain to see if this thing might have because you know, these things happen, um, yeah, rarely they do. Though. Well, I found five other cases of fingers in fast food that were that were legitimate. Oh yeah, so it happens up

to supply chain. You know, there can be an industrial accident that leaves a finger in a bag of lettuce, greens or something, and that might eventually find its way to a Windy's superbar. Oh my god, you know, doesn't have been much. I don't I wouldn't be too freaked out. I'm still freaked out. Well, we'll go over those at the end. But they're going up the supply chain. They're really doing their due diligence. They can't find. They offer

a reward at first of fifty grand, later a hundred grand. Well, they set up yeah hotline for tips. But they're they're basically, as time is going on, becoming more and more confident that they did not have a finger in that chili, right by their own fault. They traced the chili ingredients to seven different suppliers, and they got documentation from all seven suppliers that nobody at their companies had suffered any

kind of finger injury at any any recent time. And also, like you said, doing at the store, doing at any of the nearby stores had suffered any finger injury, let alone in amputation. Um. And so Wendy's was like, this, this didn't come from us, This didn't come from inside our store. Um. And they also they kind of ran a simultaneous forensic investigation as well. They hired a woman named Dr Lynn Bates who's the CEO of a company

called Alteca out of Manhattan, Kansas. And if you are looking for um evidence or study of a body part that was found in food, you go to Dr Lynn S. Bates and Alteca because they are they engage in forensic food microscopy. That's what they do, is there. That's their bread and butter is fine. Is is studying body parts found in food, and she's been doing it since nineteen six. So Wendy's went to her and said, here is a piece of this finger. Was this finger cooked in this chili?

Whose finger is it? She's like, I can't tell you whose finger it is, but I can't tell you that there is no indication that this finger was cooked for three hours in chili at a hundred and seventy degrees. It just wasn't. So that was a that combined with the the Wendy's No Wendy's employer or suppliers employers missing a finger that told Wendy's everything they need to know that they were being defrauded. Yeah, and you would think, just grab a fingerprint, police force. Uh, And then they

weren't able to. They weren't able to. They said, if they have found a hand, that they might could literally look and compare fingerprints, but they they didn't get a good enough print off it to uh to do a legitimate database search, right right, They just had to sit around and wait for that hand to show up. Because that thing had been cooking in chili for three hours. It had not been cooked in chili for three hours at any rate. Um, So Wendy's knew what was going on.

Now they had to go to the cops and say, we're being defrauded. Not only did they have the search for the missing finger investigation internally, and they hired Lynn Bates to to do forensic work on the finger itself, they also hired a detective to start looking around it Anna Ayala, and the detective turned up some very interesting

stuff about her. Yeah, he was like, wait a minute, this woman has filed at least thirteen civil lawsuits, some against major corporations, and they he probably could have stopped there and Wendy's would have just been like Dave Thomas from the grave would have said, see there, she's no good. That's a that's a good Dave Thomas. So that I think he would have said, like she should still get

the benefit of the doubt. I don't know, man, when you've when someone is this uh as a pattern of litigious behaviors like this, Well maybe he finished with proved me wrong one. There were a couple of notable ones. Um that it's it's sort of uh, frustratingly hard to find information. Um. She claimed that she won a thirty thousand dollar settlement from Elpolo Loco from medical bills from her daughter getting sick from salmonella. Elpolio Loco has always

been on record saying never happened. We did not give that lady a dime GM. She sued GM because the front wheel of her her car came off and there was an accident, and uh, that suit was dismissed with prejudice when she fired her lawyer was a no show in court. Oh is that what that means? No? No, no with prejudice means you can't bring it back. Okay, so you can't. She can't say well, like, well, I didn't show up and my lawyer was bad, so let's do this again. Okay, I got you. So basically it

was dead in the water. So she sued a former employer for her sexual harassment. I'm not even gonna comment on that one because I have no idea that could very well have been legitimate if that one struck me as possibly legitimate. But she dropped it right. She lawyered up immediately with the chilly finger, and everything made Chief Rob Davis very suspicious. Uh. And then this this guy that lived with her family named Ken Bono or Bano. What did you say? No, I've been saying. Bono hasn't

even occurred to me. It could be Bono related to Bono Kim Bono. Because the cops are starting to ask questions at this point, they do official investigations, they search her house. She claims that they held a gun to her head, ransacked her home, and like abused her daughter. Yeah, it's quite a charge for a finger chili house investigation.

There's a picture of her and her daughter in the driveway talking to a reporter and her daughter's got like her arm in a sling, but like the kind of sling you just go by at the at the drug store. So this was a guy who lived Bono, lived with their family, and when he's being investigated by the cops, uh, he said that this finger came from our aunt. Are are deceased aunt. It's her finger, all right, which is a weird thing to say, especially because Anna I alas

said all of my ants are alive. I don't know what this guy's talking about, even though he lives in my house. Yeah, what was was he trying to get money? I don't know what. I can't figure out. I couldn't find much on that guy. Um, I don't know what the deal was. I also just saw references to a rumor that the media had been reporting on that it was her dead aunt's finger. So, um, I didn't see how it came from him or what he was trying to do with that. But that's that was the thing.

But that was just kind of like a little side thread that I think also made the cops a little more suspicious to like, that's just a weird thing to say, even jokingly. Yeah, but they did actually get While it didn't lead to the who finger it was, that tipline did yield some stuff at first. Right. So yeah, So, like you said, Wendy set up a tipline, a hotline that you could call in, and what they were looking for specifically ostensibly was whose finger it was. That's what

they wanted information the owner of the finger. UM. But they were taking any and all tips that people called in, and they started offering fifty grand like you said, they later up to to a hundred grand um and it started to yield some tips, like pretty pretty much off the bat. I think the San Jose Police and Wendy's is funneling this information to the cops um as it comes in, like as good tips come in. UM. But two very early on came in from what the San

Jose Police said. There were two different people who supposedly did not know each other, who told very similar stories about how Anna Iala had told them that she was fleecing Wendy's, that all of this was just a fraud for money to extort money from Wendy's in a lawsuit.

So that that combined with all the evidence that Wendy's had gathered that it the finger had not come from inside their store, UM, all of the Anna i Alla's background, uh, all of that put together really turned the tide not just on a police investigation, but also on the media against Anna Iala. And she had started this, she had created a huge media circus around the issue, Like she went on Good Morning America and I could not find I think Good Morning America just took the video down.

He probably just burned it because she just went on and lied, lied, lied her through her teeth about what had happened, and just pointed at Wendy's and said, like, these guys screwed up, and this is the most disgusting thing that could happen to somebody, And I'm torn up inside about it, and they should pay on on national news about a week after the incident. Yeah, So, like you said, this is all playing out pretty quickly. It's all over the news, it's all over late night talk

show comedy. Uh, just bad joke after bad joke coming out of Jay Leno's mouth. I won't even repeat the one that ed included. I like the Letterman, when did you see Letterman's said that she'd been spotted going back at Wendy's in ordering chili again because she was going back to collect all five. That's good. You gotta give it up for letting me what what was Leno's something

about him? They don't. The chili now comes with fingernail clippers beside the fingernail clippers, and that really just encapsulate, encapsulates the difference between those two men. It does, although they have their joke writers, but still the love of cars, I think is also a big differentiator. I don't think Letterman really cares about cars. Shout out to Brian Kylie and Rob Kuttner. Shout out to the mid nineties Letterman Book of Top ten Lists that helped shape me as

a human being. Brian and Rob are Conan O'Brien's monologue joke writers and have been for many, many years. Did I tell you you mean? And I went to see Conan O'Brien live with Ron Funches and a couple of other people. Yea, do some standards. It was so good and we actually turned out we were staying. We were sitting next to a member of the s Y S k Army throughout the show. Oh no way. Yeah. He was like are you Josh and you me? We were like yeah, he was a good good guy, good kid.

You mean He's like, i'mum, but that's not Josh. Right, He's like, well that's weird. I'm suspicious now, um, all right, where were we? All right, it's all over the news. This is all playing out very fast. But the the drag net is sort of closing in um thanks to Wendy's investigations, thanks to the cops getting involved, and uh, miss Ayala is starting to feel the heat and like anyone who and I think the cats out of the bag now right. I think it was put the finger

in the chili. Yeah, anytime someone does something like that, it seems like two things happened. They bragged to their friends because they're dummies to begin with, and then that net starts to close and it all starts to fall apart. Right. So her response, and this is a pretty human response, she basically said, once the media spotlight went from sympathetic to her to wait a minute, who are you again? And how do you explain this thing and that thing

and all this, she she was like never mind. Yeah, that's basically what she said. She said, You know, I can't handle this media spot eight or anything anymore. So I'm just gonna drop my lawsuit against Wendy's. We'll just forget all about this, and Wendy said, no, we're not going to just forget all about this. No, let's take

a break, shall we. We're going to take a break, chuck. So, I can't surely when Anna Iala was like, Okay, I'm just gonna drop the lawsuit and this will go away, there had to only have been maybe one and a quarter percent of her brain that thought that that was actually going to work, that was actually gonna go away. She seems like street wise and savvy enough to me that that she knew it probably wasn't just going to go away, that that was nothing but hope, right, I

guess I'm curious about that. Uh yeah, I don't know, man, But like the more that they poke into her private life. Then you learned that she and her husband James uh Placincia had uh there was a and this one's hard to get information on. Two. From what I can tell is they sold a trailer trailer park trailer that did not belong to them, Yes, for eleven thousand dollars. She

did specifically, I don't know that he was involved. He may have even owned the trailer, but regardless, she did not own the trailers sold it to a woman for eleven thousand dollars, and later on the woman and her children were evicted um from the trailer that they thought

they owned that they didn't own. Yes, they also learned that her husband, I guess from her previous marriage, owed a lot of money and child support, and so things are starting to fall into place to where they're like, this lady is always making up stories, ensuing companies, she's always looking for that get rich angle. Her husband owes a ton of money, and so this is all sorting. They're starting to uh finger her if you will, for

this crime. It's the worst pun ever we met. We all, I thought we were going to make it through this, but now I've even been saying tipline about it. But okay, all right, it's done. It's out there. So they finally, uh, like you said, even though she was like, oh well, let's just forget about it, They're like, no, no no, no, we can't do that. Uh. And then there enters a lady that just kind of and it didn't end up having the hugest impact on the case itself, but it

is worth mentioning this woman named Sandy Almond. Uh, this is a little strange. So this is a woman who owned uh exotic cats, big cats, leopards, jaguars, tigers. I think is that how we're saying jaguars now jaguar? Yeah? Yeah, tell that, Britt says it on the commercial. Is it the year in sales of m up in here, Yeah, the Jaguar X twelve. So this lady elms, they's big cats. Um. This is uh not too far from Vegas where she lives in parump Nevada, I guess, or is it California

on the California side? You know, I think it's Nevada. Okay, I don't know actually know that you mentioned it. Uh. And she eventually, I guess, has to get rid of these cats and calls in a rescue group that does things like this. They're like, we're a wild animal orphanage and you're a dumb dumb who bought all these animals you shouldn't have had, so now we will deal with it. And during this transfer of animals, she's attacked by a

spotted leopard and it bites off her finger. Yes, and she says, she comes forward and says, I think that is my finger. No, No, I think actually A person who is at the wildlife rescue at the time, was the one who called the tip line with that one, Oh, I thought, because she wanted to take a DNA test and everything. Oh I didn't see that. Okay, alright, cool. So she's the one who called and said that's my finger.

Well she wanted I don't know if she literally picked up the phone and called, but she got involved such that she wanted to take a DNA test to find out if that was her finger, gotcha? Okay? Cool? Cool? Well, yeah, because she had said that the last time she'd seen it it was on ice in the emergency room. So I guess she wasn't the sentimental type who's like, I want my finger back, would you? Oh yeah, floated from aldehyde. You me would probably have the thing gilded and wear

it around her neck. Uh yeah, I'd be like, that's my finger on yous neck, check it out. Um. But so the the whole thing was just a red herring though a blind alley right like it it went nowhere. No, it was not her finger. No. Um. There were some

other tips that came in about the finger. Um. There the Mexican can authorities, I guess just over the border got involved because it was rumored that a an incident with a ranch hand losing a finger in Mexico had been the source of the finger um as, even as Anna Ayala, who, by the way, that whole tip about the trailer um sale, the trailer scam that came in from Wendy's hotline as well. By this time, I believe it was day uh twenty two. No, I'm sorry, it

was day thirty thirty two. I believe about a month after the incident originally happened. Anna Ayala and Jamie Palencia Plasencia, her husband, we're both arrested in Las Vegas, him for the child support payments, failure to pay child support, her for that trailer scam. And so while they're on ice in Las Vegas, Wendy's is still conducting this investigation. San Jose are still conducting this investigation, and and they've got them,

they have them on this other stuff. But I guess they just kind of kept them from running and that's why they arrested him, uh, knowing that they were eventually going to build the case. I'm not sure, but that's exactly what happened, because I think about fifty two days after she walked into that Wendy's and put the finger in the chili and took that bite. Um. They they

charged them for grand theft, for basically defrauding Windy's. Yeah, and at this point, as far as the police we were concerned, They're like, we don't even need to know whose finger this is at this point, right, like that

that's really immaterial. But Wendy's they still have a public relations crisis going on, and they're like, we really would like to find out where this finger came from, just so like as many facts out there as possible will really help us restore our good name if we can actually pinpoint whose finger this is and exactly how this

happened and let everybody know what what went on. Yeah, so they they actually that's when they up the um the reward from fifty thousand to a hundred thousand, right, and that's when they hit the jackpot, which is ironically, they got two callers on the hundred thousand dollar line head color you're on the dollar, and then for the next thirty seconds like hello, am I am I on? Can you hear me? Yes, you're on, You're on in

my life right now? They called the two people called one to this day, as far as I can Tell has remained anonymous. The other one was a guy named Mike Casey, and Mike Casey owned a company called Lamb Asphalt out of Las Vegas, Nevada, and he happened to be the employer of Jamie Plasencia. And he said, it's weird because you arrested one of my employees, one of

my longtime employees, um for this scam. And I also have another employee named Brian Rossiter who lost a finger not too long ago, and I think they might be connected. I think that might be Brian Rossiter's finger. And that's how the whole thing finally came crashing down because they got ahold of Brian Rossiter. They gotta They gave him a DNA test. They matched it to the DNA taken from the finger, and they said it's Brian Rossiter's finger.

Brian Rossiter worked with Jamie Plasencia. Jamie Plasencia was married to Anna Iala. Anna Iala found a finger in her Chili ipso facto, something's rotten in Denmark and that's how it stands. Yeah, And it's even a little weirder when you find out the details. So Brian is at work someone slams the tailgate of the truck on his hand, cuts an inch and a half off of his finger. Can you imagine, dude, no, uh, cuts off his finger.

And it's funny too because Ed points out, instead of like driving to the hospital, which is what any normal person would have done, he had owed Placentia some money placentia. And this is a man, a husband of a woman who it seems like they're both always looking to scam somebody, and they're looking for the angle. He sees this finger and he goes, hey, you owe me money. Some people say it was fifty bucks. We don't know for sure. I saw a hundred almost everywhere. Okay, so let's say

it's a hundred. He's like, you give me that that finger, and we'll just call it square. And not only that, my friend, but if you ever hear about this finger in the news, keep it quiet, and I will give you a quarter of a million dollars at some point in the future. That's what they call the carrot and the other carrot. Yeah, so he said, just drip some blood on this roof shingle, and that will be our contract, right right right it Just sign X with your stub,

your bloody stuff, this old used roof shingle. I saw, actually I saw that he did go to the hospital and came back to the work site with his amputated finger. And that's what Jamie Presidency was like, Hey, hey, I'm sure he did that. What you canna do with that any sense at all? Yeah, that he would just be like,

wait a minute. So they so, so Brian Rossiter gives him his finger, and that's where the whole thing began, just a couple of months before, right, Yeah, And I think didn't didn't Rossiter himself also called the tip line. I didn't see that anywhere. Okay, I heard he called the tip line himself because he knew at this point he was getting no money out of the scam, so he thought, let me try and get this hundred grand

at least. And Wendy's never would cop to whether or not he got any tip line money, right, And so Mike Casey, the guy who from all from everything that it seems he was innocent of this, he just happened to put two and two together because he knew the guys um He said originally, hey, you know, my asphalt company maintains the lots of a few Wendy's around here, and they've always been good to me, so I wanted

to help out. That was an article in May. An article in September is Mike Casey saying, you know, Wendy's never paid me that money for the hotline, So I don't know if he ever got it, but from what I saw, he was gonna have to split it with the one other anonymous caller. I don't know if that was Brian Rossater or not. Maybe Brian Rossater was scared that Jamie Plasencia might do something if he found out that he had been he had tipped him off for what.

But supposedly Mike Casey and this anonymous caller, we're going to um split that hundred grand. So whether Wendy's actually pay that money or not, that remains to be seen. I don't know. I didn't see that anywhere. Well. In the end, uh Y'alla and her husband. She got sentenced to nine years. He got sentenced to twelve because I think they piled on him for the probably child support right or was it the trailer scam? Yeah, he know, he got three in the third years for the um

the uh, the child support thing. Okay, Um. I don't know how long he actually served. I think she only served about four of that nine um. She later revealed some more details, including that she did cook the finger. Yeah. Uh apparently was not a It wasn't a raw finger, nor though was it cooked in a hundred seventy agree chili for three hours. But it was cooked a little bit.

I think she just literally probably put it in a pan and was thinking like, oh, wait a minute, I bet I bet they didn't think I would think of this right, and cooked up the finger a little bit. One thing that she didn't think of the chuck was, um, she didn't bite the finger, And they found out pretty quickly through forensic investigation that there was no bite in the finger. Nor did she throw up in the restaurant like she said she did, because there were people in

the restaurant. They were like, nah, I don't she didn't vomit that I saw, And employees were like, no, she didn't throw up that I saw. Her father in law and mother in law both said, um, that they saw her throw up, but yeah, there was no evidence of vomit anywhere in the bathroom or around her table or anything. Yeah, And they did a pretty bad job. Yeah they did. I was gonna use a nasty word to characterize it,

but it's the family show. So well. These are the worst kind of people man, These litigious like just like work for your money man, going around suing corporations. I know. So Wendy's supposedly lost two point five million dollars in verifiable lost money. They had to cut people's hours. This is another thing that kind of gets left off a lot. They had to cut the hours of the employees UM in the Bay Area, in particular because there was such

little foot traffic coming through their stores. So when they were convicted and sentenced, Jamie Pleasencia and Anna Ayala were um sentenced to pay back a hundred and seventy thousand plus dollars in lost wages to the Wendy's employees. Oh and they were also ordered to pay uh five hundred thousand to a management who owned the Wendy's and then like another another substantial amount to Wendy's if if they ever profited from the crime man bad people. She was

banned from Windy's, which I don't know how you enforce that. Yeah, I was wondering that myself. Actually, it seems uh like I don't know if there's every Wendy's has a picture of her something like that. I know what sports stadiums they do that when people are banned, and that is a little more enforceable because like you can literally just have everyone be aware of that person. That's like checking tickets and things. But you can't How can you keep

someone from coming into any Windy's anywhere? I don't know. They can try. At least they can send a message by saying, uh, you can't come here any longer. Arby's two fingers two thousand four, two thousand twelve, No, uh, Coal's frozen custard in Wilmington, North Carolina. Finger two thousand five, t g I Friday's Hamburger had a finger in two

thousand six. Wow, And those are all verified and they found you know, like, uh, it was in the supply chain, like someone lost a finger and it got mixed in and it's very just very unfortunate. I'm sure there were quiet settlements on those. I'm sure too. This bizarre. I had no idea that that happened. I thought it was almost always either a case of mistaken identity or a hoax. I didn't realize that actually really happened, you know. Oh yeah, well, um,

that's the Wendy's Chili finger caper. If you ever wanted to know about it, now you do, and we're glad that you do. We're glad we were the ones that told you. And if you want to know more about it, go read contemporary articles at the time. It's awesome just to see something like that unfold. It's so cool. Uh And since I said that, it's time for the listener,

mayo and hey, shout out to Wendy's. I'm sure I don't know if they like people still talking about this or not, but they did not put a finger in anyone's chili. Yeah, good point, clear, good point. All right, even gonna call this Adidas Puma. Hey, guys, just finished listening to the few you between Addie and Ruddy Dassler. I wanted to say I really enjoyed it. My dad is actually from uh Hertz Generach. You were an Adida's family through and through when my godmother, aunt aunt Helga

worked for Adidas as an administrative assistant for years. In addition to this, almost jumped out of my seat when you mentioned the mayor of hurt So you spoke of Dr German Hawker and how he reft a soccer match wearing one adidasue and one Puma. My uncle Hans was the mayor right before Hawker was Yeah, I knew you wouldn't be referring to him because he wouldn't have been caught dead in even one Puma because of my aunt's

work at the opposing shop. I didn't wear Puma gear myself until I was grown and could buy it myself, and my entire German family called me a trader. Uh. And this was in the early two thousand, so the tension is still real. Um. I'm sure it was lighthearted at least I hope it was. In any case, I just want to let you know your research was spot on. I really love hearing about something I knew a little

bit about. By the way, I also use your show in my classroom teaching twelfth grade government in Civics, and the kids love it. So shout out to Jennifer Westerner, Uh, Gazoe at Thompson Stations, Tennessee and your senior government class. Well, thank you, Ms Gigo and class. That's probably not pronounced right, Gaugo. I have no idea Gaucho GeV. Yeah, Gansho goodnev. That's

what it is. UH. If you want to get in touch with us to say HI about an old episode or for whatever reason, you can go on to stuff you Should Know dot com, check out our social media links and UH. You can also send us an email to stuff podcast at how stuff works dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff works dot com