A prank call leads to a 2-hour strip-search at a fast-food restaurant

A prank caller posing as a cop calls a manager at a Hardee's Restaurant in Rapid City, South Dakota. He tells the store manager that one of his employees stole money from a customer. Instead of calling the real police, the manager decides to strip search the employee. This prank call went on for more than 2 hours.

I spoke with the manager of that restaurant to find out why he obeyed the prank caller's every demand.

Searching for David Stewart—the prank call suspect

Victor Flaherty is now the Cheif of Police in West Bridgewater police department in Massachusetts at the time in 2004, he was a detective sergeant searching for the notorious fast-food prank caller. Many police stations across the United States tried to locate the perpetrator—and all of them failed. It turns out that tracing the calls back to the source proved to be nearly impossible. 

Listen to the lengthVictor Flaherty went through to find the suspect named David Stewart.

If you want to start from the beginning, listen to part 1 here.

Credits

Today’s show was written by Javier Leiva and edited by Molly Brock.

Our theme music was written and composed by Joe Basile with TheChicken.net.

Additional music by Blue Dot Sessions and Podington Bear.

References:

Rapid City Journal

Courier Journal

MSNBC

-------

If you have a story to share, email Javier a voice memo or short written description at [email protected].

For more episodes like this visit pretendradio.org.

To get early releases and bonus episodes go to pretendradio.org/donate

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices