A Weird Case, Baby? Uh Huh!

By Anastasia Toufexis

The wizards who market soft drinks know that America is a fad-happy nation, and Pepsi has long been adroit at catching or creating the latest wave. But there is sometimes a dark side to the national thirst to be part of a trend. Jangling deep in the psyche of some souls, it appears, is an irresistible urge to be certified on the 5 o'clock news as a victim, a stoic survivor of sinister forces. Last week Pepsi found itself at the center of one of the weirdest such ripples of the media age, first as alleged victimizer, then as stoic victim.

It began when Earl and Mary Triplett returned from a 61st wedding anniversary vacation in Alaska to their home near Tacoma, Washington, popped open a Diet Pepsi, and then trundled off to bed. The next morning Earl picked up the container, which had been left overnight on a table, heard a rattle and was surprised to find a syringe inside. The couple called their lawyer, who called the press and local health officials, who alerted the police. And thus a frenzy was born.

Within days, similar reports poured in from around the country: more than 50 complaints in 23 states. In New York City, a man claimed that he accidentally swallowed two pins that were in a Pepsi bottle. In Beach City, Ohio, a woman said she found a sewing needle in a can of the soft drink. And in Jacksonville, Florida, a man discovered a screw in his beverage container. Pepsi's chief executive Craig A. Weatherup scurried from Nightline to MacNeil/ Lehrer to the morning network shows, looking concerned and attempting damage control.

But even as cases mounted, many were being exposed as hoaxes. By week's end more than a dozen people had been arrested for making false reports. Among & them were a Colorado woman and South Carolina man who were captured on video by store security cameras putting objects in cans; others were admitting they lied. The Pepsi scare fizzled as fast as an open can of cola on a hot picnic table.

That comes as no surprise to experts who have studied product tampering since it first exploded in 1982, when seven people in the Chicago area died after taking cyanide-laced Extra-Strength Tylenol. Waves of tampering complaints have since swept the nation. But for all the hysteria, true tampering -- deliberately altering a product to endanger random victims -- remains a rare crime. "More than 90% of reports of product tampering turn out to be false alarms," notes forensic psychiatrist Park Dietz of Newport Beach, California, who is a consultant to the FBI.

Genuine cases of product tampering, while shocking, usually have clear motives, according to forensic experts. Perpetrators are typically driven by profit, publicity and, in the case of disgruntled workers, revenge. The classic tamperer is an angry, antisocial person who "gets a real sense of power from devising a plan and seeing it blossom in the media," says psychologist N.G. Berrill of the New York Forensic Mental Health Group.

But how to explain the rash of faked complaints and scams in the Pepsi scare? Such bogus reports often break out after an initial believable case is given wide publicity. Sometimes it's a simple craving for attention or a prank. A 21-year-old man arrested last week in Branson, Missouri, admitted that he'd lied about finding a hypodermic needle in a Pepsi can "to see what the police department would do." A 62-year-old California woman confessed to police that she fabricated a similar story as a joke on her daughter.

Money is also a lure. "Scam artists see the opportunity for personal-injury compensation," says Berrill, who notes that "many Americans are generally angry at large conglomerates and believe that a corporation can afford to pay a few injury claims." The quest for money can become unfathomably ugly. To promote their claims of finding ground class in Gerber baby food during the 1986 scare, some parents purposely fed slivers of glass to their children and even cut their kids' bottoms with shards.

For others, the motives are more unusual. "Security guards have placed foreign objects in products, such as a razor blade in a tomato, to impress supervisors with their vigilance," reports Dietz. "They're similar to the ) volunteer fireman who sets a fire and then discovers it." The strangest motive, though, may be the need to gain sympathy as a victim. "Just as some people induce signs of illness in themselves to enjoy the benefits of the patient's role, others fake tampering to enjoy the benefits -- emotional support, nurturing -- of the victim's role. Such people will also stage their own robberies, burglaries or rapes."

"Each nationally publicized incident generates on average 30 more seriously disruptive crimes," declares Dietz, who would like to see news organizations limit their coverage of tampering. He points out that the initial Pepsi report occurred while Washington was saturated with news accounts of the June 8 sentencing of Joseph Meling, who was convicted of putting cyanide in cold capsules in an attempt to kill his wife; she survived but two others died.

With the case fresh in mind, police and the public might have jumped too quickly to the conclusion that the hypodermic found in the Tripletts' Pepsi can was the result of tampering. Late last week investigators were looking into the possibility that someone had innocently disposed of an insulin syringe by dropping it into the empty can.

With reporting by Alice Park/New York