Yikes! Evil parents really tick me off

TerryJ2

Well-Known Member
...especially when we're all working so hard to do right for our children. I can't even post what I'd like to do to this guy. Hot peppers, lighter fluid, Prozac and Amitriptyline?
%^&!@#$!((&^%$&@#$%!!!!!!


Dad Who Tampered Soup Faces New Charges
By Associated Press

February 12, 2007, 6:19 AM EST

JONESBORO, Ga. -- County prosecutors will pursue child cruelty charges against a man who admitted tampering with his children's soup to get money from the Campbell Soup Co.

William Allen Cunningham, 41, pleaded guilty to communicating false claims last week in federal court. But local officials said those charges do not address the harm done to his children.

Clayton County District Attorney Jewel Scott said the state case will be reopened and prosecutors will seek to indict Cunningham on five counts of child cruelty.

Cunningham's 3-year-old son and 18-month-old daughter were hospitalized twice in January 2006 -- the first time after eating soup laced with hot peppers and lighter fluid, and the second time with the prescription drugs Prozac and Amitriptyline.

According to federal prosecutors, Cunningham called the soup company and threatened to sue. Under the terms of his federal plea agreement, Cunningham could be sentenced to as many as five years in federal prison when he is sentenced April 19.
 

tiredmommy

Well-Known Member
Terry I agree this man is pure evil. I'm going to move this to the Watercooler as it's not specific to one of our difficult children.
 

Marguerite

Active Member
The sheer idiocy of this is breathtaking. I mean, you could only believe this could happen, if there was some way in which the soup could have been contaminated with these things during manufacture. The chemicals are a long shot - the drugs, simply not possible except as the result of deliberate tampering.

I remember years ago our local church minister told me how one of his kids had poured a bowl of cereal and tipped out, along with the flakes, a cigarette stub. Yes, you CAN see how that would get in there, through poor hygiene.
And he didn't threaten to sue, or call the media - he just rang the company to let them know, in case it happened to someone else (because clearly there WAS a problem in hygiene that the company needed to know about). He was dreadfully embarrassed when the company sent him a crate of cereal! But grateful - seven kids to feed. Mind you, one of them would never touch that cereal again.

And that's another difference - he didn't ring the company to ask for money or recompense, he only wanted the problem fixed for others.

When there is a problem that the company can track back to the source, it's believable. The breakfast cereal people probably found the guy who was smoking on the packaging line, thanks to the minister's notification.

We had a legal problem here in Australia a few years ago, with a family claiming to have been poisoned by paracetamol that had been tampered with in the supermarket. The company had received extortion threats ("pay us or we poison your packages on the shelves at random") but nobody could have sued the company, because they were not responsible. It cost them a fortune, however, to pull their range from the shelves of pharmacies and supermarkets. They lost a lot of money, and this one family had already been poisoned because the product wasn't taken off the shelves fast enough. There was a lot of criticism claiming failure to act fast enough, but they had done what they could.
Then test were carried out. The family who had been poisoned were finally found to have been the ones behind the extortion attempt. They were all adults, so at least young children weren't involved, but even so they had almost fatally miscalculated. There had been enough trace of the poison they'd ingested (supposedly from contaminated headache pills) for it's 'signature' to be noted, and supplies of the same chemical batch were found on the property of this family.

They got a lot more than five years.

Marg
 

skeeter

New Member
I work for a company that is often the "target" of tampering claims such as this person committed.
Believe me, it is often highly obvious when and where the tampering occurred. Especially with processed food, there is a time stamp on the container that states the date (or day of the year), time (to the minute) and line the container was made on. It is very easy to trace everything made at the same time for similar contamination - and if there isn't, well, process of elimination shows who did what.
It's one thing to have something that's routinely found in the plant wind up in a product, but to have something such as drugs or chemicals that have no place in the plant be there if very, very unlikely.
Claims are looked at chemically, microscopically, and everything in between.
 

TerryJ2

Well-Known Member
I know. Not only is he evil, he's a moron. At least the kids are living with-someone else, although that's only conjecture on my part... I'm guessing relatives, knowing how the court system works.
I love the story about calling the company about the cigarette :censored2: and receiving a crate of cereal! LOL! That is so typical. I got food poisoning at a large fast food chain when I was 15 and of course, they offered to compensate me with-a free meal. Right, that's JUST what I wanted! LOL! I haven't eaten there since, and that was almost 40 (mumble)yrs ago!!!
Those poor kids.
 

tiredmommy

Well-Known Member
My husband is the reason why Pringles chips no longer have a sharp edge when you open the canister with the pull tab. He was 9 years old and knicked himself on the sharp edge. He wrote a letter to the company president advising them to come up with safer packaging before a more serious injury occurred. He received back a letter apologizing for the incident and the president's personal assurance that the packaging's safety would be improved. He also received a case of Pringles and a certificate of some sort thanking him for being a good citizen.
 

Hound dog

Nana's are Beautiful
Wow, TM. That's pretty awesome. I always wondered why they changed the packaging.

I'm glad the man didn't get away with it and the kids aren't with him anymore. Makes you wonder. Sheesh.
 
Top