A 68-year-old Illinois man has been accused by US federal prosecutors of inserting sewing needles into packaged meat 'just for the hell of it' at a grocery store in his hometown of St Louis for more than a year.
The criminal complaint filed on Wednesday against Ronald Avers said one buyer of boneless chuck roast at the Shop 'n Save store in Belleville, just east of St Louis, later bit into one of the needles, and a needle slipped into a steak stuck another customer.
Avery, who made a brief court appearance on Thursday on the tampering counts each punishable by up to 10 years in prison and $250,000 fine, was ordered jailed pending a scheduled detention hearing on Monday.
FBI Special Agent Daniel Cook, in an affidavit filed with the criminal complaint, wrote that Shop 'n Save alerted him on July 9 of the tamper, which dated to May of last year, when a customer first reported finding a needle in a package of ground beef.
Roughly four months later, Cook wrote, a store employee found a needle sticking out of a package of pork chops. Customers later reported finding needles in everything from ground beef to roasts and steaks.
Using its surveillance camera footage, Cook wrote, the Shop 'n Save's security crew identified a suspect seen manipulating meat items he never ended up buying and alerted Cook on Tuesday when that man again entered the store, riding a motorised scooter and using a portable oxygen tank.
After buying various items, Cook said, the man was approached by investigators outside the store and allowed them to search his truck, where an open package of sewing needles was found in a centre console. He eventually acknowledged what he had allegedly done.
''Every now and then I would stick one in a hamburger',' Cook quoted Avers as saying before the man expounded, ''Mostly hamburger, a couple of times I did it with a roast, maybe a pork chop every now and then'.'
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