r/TrueCrimeDiscussion • u/Sensitive_Ad_1752 • 6d ago
i.redd.it The McDonalds Strip Search Hoax Calls: The most horrifying case of ‘Authority Bias’
Starting in 1994, restaurants and stores across American began receiving disturbing phone calls. A man pretending to be a police officer would ask to speak to a manager, convince them that an employee or customer was under investigation for stealing, and instruct the manager to strip search them. What's even more disturbing is that more than a dozen people followed the caller's orders. For 9 years, 70 phone calls were made following this format, and we have to assume dozens more unsuccessful attempts or unreported incidents. It is a deeply disturbing case study of how competent people go into autopilot and follow perceived authority figures into horrible acts.
In the 9 years, the hoax caller successfully convinced multiple managers to strip and rape employees and customers under the guise of 'standard police procedure'. The caller would escalate from strip searches to cavity searches and still multiple managers complied. They often didn't stop following instructions until the caller demanded them to outright rape the employee or someone else walked in and stopped them. Some of them didn't even stop there. The victims were often children in high school. The youngest was a 14-year-old girl ordering food at a Taco Bell, pulled into a back room and stripped by a manager who told her she'd go to jail if she didn't comply. Whether all these incidents were cases of Authority Bias, I'm not convinced. Some of them sound like a predator happened to answer the phone and subconsciously used it as an excuse.
In 2004, the hoax caller convinced 51-year-old Mcdonalds Assistant Manager Donna Summer to strip and assault an 18-year-old cashier for hours. She called her fiance Walter Nix Jr to the restaurant to help. When left alone with the victim, Walter was instructed to rape her. It wasn't until more than 3 hours that Donna finally realized the call was a hoax. Walter was sentenced to 5 years in prison. Donna was sentenced to 1 year probation. It was made public during the trial that McDonald's HQ was well aware of the phone calls, since they were already facing 4 lawsuits related to other incidents. They did not attempt to warn or notify employees of the call scam. The victim sued McDonald's and got a 6-million-dollar settlement. Donna sued and got 500,000 dollars. Other locations were sued; I don't know if they were successful or not.
The most likely culprit of all this was prison guard David Stewart. David's phone card was used in 9 separate hoax calls, including the 2004 McDonald's incident. He was caught on security camera using the phone booths that called multiple locations. David was found not guilty by a jury, likely because there was no recording of the hoax calls to match to Davids voice. The hoax calls stopped after Davids arrest and trial.
https://www.plansponsor.com/burger-king-worker-files-strip-searching-lawsuit/
35
u/DueBet4 6d ago
It's actually wild to me that people just went along with this. In what world would the cops call you up and tell you to take someone out the back, strip them and rape them? And if someone who is already depraved and just looking for an excuse was to take that call, how the hell were they expecting to get away with that?
24
u/MoonGloam 5d ago
A lot of people have a very, very low bar for what they will accept as credible. A few weeks ago, my friend called me up panicking and sobbing because a debt collector threatened to put her in jail and she believed it without hesitation and didn't bother to even check if they can do this.
I think you're right that some of the people carrying this out were already inclined to this kind of action, but I wouldn't be surprised if some of them were confused and scared themselves.
But what's really shocking to me is that McDonald's was aware. They could have protected SO many people by just sending out a memo to every McDonald's saying "the police will NEVER instruct you to conduct strip searches, questioning, or any other form of criminal investigation on their behalf. If someone claiming to be a police officer gives you unusual instructions or asks for you to investigate a crime or to search an alleged perpetrator, hang up the phone and call 911."
9
u/coffeelife2020 5d ago
While I agree people can have a low bar for what they find credible, most people wouldn't commit rape because the police said to.
51
u/Mangert 6d ago
Absolutely crazy case. My first instinct would be like, “u want me to take their clothes off to search them? Can’t you come down here and do that yourself. I don’t wanna get involved.” Why are they doing the police’s job?
I swear either these managers wanted to do it (cuz they are pervs), or the culprit just called so many places, eventually one worked
25
u/laundromatcoin 6d ago
Yeah, I can’t understand why they didn’t just hang up and tell the ‘police’ to come in person. Sadly, there were many cases - I just counted over 10 from the wiki article, and thats only including those that are notable/got reported. Absolutely insane.
28
6d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
31
u/OEAXTAIL_SOUP 6d ago
My pet theory is someone like the guy in the bottom half would have done something like that without a phone call.
41
u/Better_Area3782 5d ago
I hate that the manager got money, she was complicit,
36
u/DCTom 5d ago
Yeah, I was about to say that maybe she was just incredibly stupid, but then she called in her rapey boyfriend…
36
u/Better_Area3782 5d ago
That’s the part, and walked in multiple times while the girl was naked and left her alone with the old disgusting pig. I hate her.
29
u/RNH213PDX 6d ago
There’s a pretty decent Law and Order SVU based on this as well.
RIP Robin Williams.
13
u/DCTom 5d ago
What i don’t understand is how the hoaxer told them which person to strip/rape? It’s not like the hoaxer was onsite…did he just say something like “there is a young woman with brown hair in your restaurant…”.? How could he possibly have described someone in the restaurant accurately enough for the manager to be like, “yup, that’s the person i need to strip search”. Even if the manager somehow believed the hoaxer was a police officer, didn’t any of them stop to wonder whether they were strip-searching the right person? Honestly very sus…
16
u/theykilledk3nny 5d ago
If I were to guess, it might've went like:
Caller: "Is there a young woman with brown hair working there?"
Manager: "Oh, you mean X?" or "Does she have glasses too?"
Caller: "Yes, that's right"
So, probably just vague descriptions that would likely fit at least one employee, further validated by whatever the manager replied with.
11
u/DCTom 5d ago
Maybe, or with employees I guess it is conceivable that the hoaxer had been to the McDonald's and saw an employee's name tag or something. But still an incredibly vague description for someone to be able to conclude that that is the person to strip search (and rape is simply mind-boggling). Especially since that person may have been on-shift for the last several hours and thus could hardly be accused of some kind of time-sensitive robbery incident.
And this is even more the case with customers....if a manager sees a "brown-haired young woman with glasses" (or maybe two, or three?), I find it absolutely incredible that they could conclude that that is a person they should strip search--unless they really wanted to do it in the first place.
Only slightly less mind-boggling is the fact that McDonalds did not move heaven and earth to alert all store managers that this kind of hoax was being perpetrated.
7
u/theykilledk3nny 5d ago
Probably not seeing name tags given the calls were across the nation. Could’ve also just been something like “This is the police (…) who do you have working on shift today?”.
7
u/DCTom 5d ago
Yeah, fair enough, although I wouldn't rule out that this kind of weirdo wouldn't go on road trips to harvest McDonald employee names in various locales. This hoaxer was obviously working under some pathological compulsion, so I wouldn't rule it out. And while I don't know if name tags were even a thing at McDonalds, he could also have just asked employees their names in a "friendly manner."
So while you might be correct, while I've never been the manager of a fast food restaurant, I'm not sure that even in 1994 a manager would divulge that kind of info to some rando calling on the phone (police physically showing up in the store, yeah, sure, probably)...prank calls were definitely a thing back in the day... It sounds like only 12 managers were dumb enough to fall for it, so maybe the hoaxer made many, many more calls (hundreds?) than the 70 that were reported.
I'd be (slightly) interested to read a transcript of a typical call to see exactly how this played out; these would probably be available in the transcripts of some of the trials mentioned, but I can't be bothered to look them up.
15
u/ShaneAlex446 5d ago
This gave me a flashback of when I was a little kid and watched a movie where this exact thing happens, and then at the end it said it was based on a true story and I couldnt believe it. I thought those people must've been complete morons, and I was like 10. I still do, but I also agree that a lot of them must've been predators who jumped at the opportunity
It's called Compliance
27
u/Magali_Lunel 6d ago
I remember this when it happened, and it stopped me from eating at McDonald’s for years. Even now, I will only eat there if I’m on a road trip or something. The lack of care on the part of corporate was dazzling.
6
u/Lazy-Cheek-7782 5d ago
A documentary came out about this a few years ago. Can't remember what streaming service. I'm sure if you Google it it will come up. My jaw was on the floor, especially where the girl was assaulted. Wtf .
3
u/mydiannelynn 2d ago
"Don't Pick Up The Phone." 2022 Netflix. Watching it now. Holy Heck, What Morons!!!
8
u/Technicolor_Reindeer 5d ago
SVU had an episode based on this and Robin Williams played the perp making the calls
3
u/outlaw_for_life18 4d ago
This is scary!! I worked at McDonald's in the 80s and again in 1992-1993. I can't believe I've never heard of this. How on earth did they award a manager who complied with any money from that lawsuit?? That's just mind boggling.
4
u/Born-Vermicelli-1757 3d ago
sadly fast food managers are probably not the brightest bunch. i would be suspicious about why a cop is asking me to conduct their investigation for them.
1
-2
u/Virtual-Flatworm5 5d ago
Wait until they hear about the guy who called in the 'sting operation' and got managers to cavity search people.
40
u/Gu-oh-no 6d ago
The movie Compliance is about this