Anna Ayala, the woman who was sent to prison for pretending she’d gotten a severed finger in her Wendy’s chili, has finally come clean. “I cooked it,” she tells CBS-5 when pressed on how she carried out her crime. After keeping the finger in her freezer for months, she cooked it into chili using the Wendy’s recipe, then drove to San Jose to pull off the con.
The interview represents Ayala's first public account of her crime. She’s been out of prison on parole for a year now, quietly living in San Jose but unable to find work. She says she’s broken up with her husband and co-conspirator, who is still in jail. Her parole also comes with a condition: “I’m banned from Wendy’s,” she says. “For life.” (More Anna Ayala stories.)