A 23-year-old man, Hector Corona Villanueva, has been arrested in California after police say he staged a “macabre teddy bear” made to look as if it were constructed from human flesh at a petrol station. The bear’s discovery led to a police investigation and a coroner’s examination of the item, while the petrol station was closed as a sense of unease spread in the community.
The incident occurred on Sunday afternoon at an AMPM service station in the city of Victorville, about 80 miles northeast of Los Angeles. A witness called police to report that “a teddy bear made of what looked like human flesh was left in front of the business.” A video posted online shows police responding to the scene as a glove-clad official from the coroner’s office examines the object and places it into an evidence bag.
On Monday, the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s office ruled the bear wasn’t made of any human body parts and dubbed the toy a “prank.” Mr. Villanueva was identified and arrested on Monday. It is unclear whether he has hired a lawyer who can speak on his behalf.
The sheriff’s office stated that incidents such as this take up valuable emergency resources and put the public at risk, possibly delaying response time to legitimate calls for service. “We would like to thank those that reported information that was helpful during the investigation of this case,” the statement said.
Interestingly, South Carolina artist Robert Kelly has taken credit for creating the object, telling US media that he recently sold the figure to a buyer in Victorville. “Our work is pretty easily recognisable, and people were sending the articles (about the petrol station) left and right. I looked, and sure enough it was the bear I sent out last week,” Mr. Kelly told People magazine. “Every artist wants credit [for] their work, so I said ‘I made that’, and haven’t been able to catch up with messages since.”
In a post to Facebook on Sunday, Mr. Kelly denied having any knowledge of what the buyer intended to do with the bear. “No I did not have any knowledge of the [buyer’s] intentions nor was I involved in a prank on the other side of the nation from me,” he wrote. Mr. Kelly specializes in horror creations for Halloween displays and films, and other items are also made to resemble construction from human body parts, similar to the bear.