Police search home of woman who found finger

The mystery of the finger found in a bowl of chili at a San Jose Wendy's last month deepened Thursday with revelations that police have searched the Las Vegas home of the woman who made the revolting find.

A tearful Anna Ayala, 39, angrily denied planting the finger in a telephone interview with The Chronicle. She accused San Jose and Las Vegas officers of bursting into her home with guns drawn on her and her family Wednesday afternoon.

"They put guns to us and handcuffed us and threw us to the ground in front of all my neighbors,'' Ayala said Thursday. She accused police of terrorizing her family, ransacking her home and injuring the arm of her 13-year-old daughter.

She dismissed press rumors that authorities are investigating whether the finger belonged to Ayala's dead aunt.

"Then again, the way the article is worded, before long she might be working an angle to sue the police too."

If what she says is true she could sue the police even if she was scamming Wendy's. There is no need to handcuff people and throw them to the ground in order to execute a search warrant.

If what she says is true she could sue the police even if she was scamming Wendy's. There is no need to handcuff people and throw them to the ground in order to execute a search warrant.

If what she says is true, the police did this in front of "all her neighbors", so there will be plenty of witnesses.

Just because the police can't find another perp doesn't mean this woman actually planted the finger. I don't see any evidence in this article that she did except for speculation on the part of the police.

DNA results would show if she is related to the "finger" in question and should have been used before this. The first thing they should have done was request a DNA sample from the woman before prededing with the investigation.

Of course that would have been the intelligent thing to do. As far as the storm trooper tactics they exhibited she should be thinking about sueing the police. They were only there to search the house not arrest someone.

Why don't they exhume the aunt and count fingers.

This begs the question "How did she get her aunts finger?". I have buried many relatives and have never had the oportunity to actually cut off a digit or any other body part between the time the relative died and the time they buried them. It would be diffucult to do! Did she ask the funeral home to please giver her finger as a momento?

Point here is, she may have done it but we don't know that yet. Don't find her guilty until proven or at least until more evidence than suspicion is presented.

Oh, yes one more thing. If she did plant the finger why are they searching her house? What do they expect to find? More body parts stashed around the house. Take DNA and test it. Searching was useless to my point of view and could have been done as an harassment technique instead of an actual investigation process.

I know its a pain in the butt to click through to the article, but the police say the aunt story is just a rumor and the Ayala woman says she doesn't even have a dead aunt. So they won't be exhuming anyone, at least not until they know whose finger it was.

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