Body part found in drink
Store removes product in Colo.
By Ryan Morgan Special to The Denver Post
Saturday, September 29, 2001 - King Soopers has pulled
a potency fruit drink from shelves across Colorado after a Commerce City
man found what authorities believe is a severed human penis inside a
bottle.
"I thought somebody was joking at first, but it's
not a joke," said Juan Sanchez-Marchez, 41, a machine operator.
Sanchez-Marchez bought six 20-ounce bottles of Ora
Potency Fruit Punch at King Soopers at 6040 E. 64th Ave. in Commerce
City on Wednesday.
On Thursday, when he was halfway through the fourth
bottle of the reddish-colored drink, he made the discovery. He
immediately called police.
"He found what appears to be a human penis in the
bottle," Commerce City police spokeswoman Elaine Rowe said.
"It's a good drink, but I'm not going to drink it
anymore," Sanchez-Marchez said.
King Soopers said it removed the Ora Potency drink,
which it has carried for about a year, from its shelves as a
precautionary measure, vice president of sales Donna Giordano said.
Police are investigating the possibility of a hoax.
But they said Sanchez-Marchez isn't missing any of his own body parts
and appears to be an innocent victim.
"He seems very credible," Rowe said.
Sanchez-Marchez went to the doctor's office Friday for
some blood tests, but results for HIV, hepatitis and other illnesses
won't be back for months.
Police asked the Adams County coroner's office to run
pathology tests on the tissue to determine whether it is human.
Coroner Rich Amend said the tissue is most likely a
human penis, although his office is still awaiting final lab results.
Rowe said police had a pretty good idea of what the
body part was even before they took it to the coroner.
"There's about 3 inches there," Rowe said.
"It's identifiable, and it's not just a hunk of skin."
Police said the Pittsburgh-based bottling company told
them that the bottling process is highly automated and that adding body
parts to beverages would be difficult.
Police also intend to talk with the distributing
company.
Where the penis came from is a key question, police
said.
"This isn't just a matter of a dead animal,"
Rowe said, citing the 1988 case of a prankster puting a dead mouse in a
Coors can in Jacksonville, Fla.
"Where did this come from? This is a human body
part," Rowe said.
