A man in California has been arrested after police say he staged a “macabre teddy bear” made to look as if it were constructed from human flesh at a petrol station.
Hector Corona Villanueva, 23, is accused of planting false evidence and causing an emergency by leaving the bizarre creation at an AMPM service station on Sunday afternoon in the city of Victorville.
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.
On Monday, the 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 gruesome discovery in Victorville, 80 miles (130km) northeast of Los Angeles, had locals worried about a possible serial killer on the loose.
The item was found around midday on Sunday at the filling station on Bear Valley Road when 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.
A statement from the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s office on Monday did not mention a potential motive, and said the “investigation into who left the teddy bear at the business is continuing”.
“Incidents such as this take up valuable emergency resources and put the public at risk, possibly delaying response time to legitimate calls for service,” the statement said.
“We would like to thank those that reported information that was helpful during the investigation of this case.”
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, who sells his work through a shop on the website Etsy, specialises in horror creations for Halloween displays and films.
Other items are also made to resemble construction from human body parts, similar to the bear.
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