The Mouse Set Them Up



On the bright side, at least we now know that if you want vermin in your soup at Cracker Barrel, it will cost extra.

A woman who said she found a mouse in her soup at a Cracker Barrel restaurant last month made up the whole story, the Commonwealth's Attorney's Office announced. Carla Patterson, 36, and her son, Ricky Patterson, 20, both of Hampton, Va., were charged Tuesday with attempted extortion and conspiracy to commit a felony after they tried to get Cracker Barrel to give them money in the hoax, said Howard Gwynn, Newport News' Commonwealth's lawyer. Carla Patterson was eating at the Newport News restaurant May 8 when she said she discovered the mouse in a bowl of vegetable soup. Her screams prompted other patrons to leave the restaurant, and the incident caused Cracker Barrel to stop serving vegetable soup at all its 497 stores nationwide. The Pattersons were arrested Tuesday after a sting operation in which officials from Cracker Barrel met the Pattersons and handed them a check, with law enforcement officials witnessing the handover.

Happily for those of us who can't get enough of such stories, the Pattersons' deny the charges.

“We never took any money, we never signed any checks, we never did anything,” Carla Patterson told 13News’ Velma Scaife. “We were arrested, our rights were violated.”




Carla, 36, and her son, Ricky Patterson, 20, were arrested during a sting operation Tuesday in Newport News near the Jefferson Avenue restaurant where they claimed on May 8 they had found a dead mouse in their bowl of vegetable soup. The two were charged with attempted extortion and conspiracy to commit a felony.

Cracker Barrel said that it did a lab analysis of the mouse that revealed the animal had died of a fractured skull, didn’t have any soup in its lungs and had not been cooked.

“That gave us confidence that the soup couldn’t have been served with the mouse in it,” said Julie Davis, Cracker Barrel’s corporate communications director.

But the Pattersons questioned those tests.

“Does it match the mouse that we have pictures of?” Ricky Patterson asked the television station.

Posted: Thu - June 3, 2004 at 05:59 PM      

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