Testing on tampered meat yields inconclusive results

ST. LOUIS -- More tests have failed to identify foreign objects found last month in two packages of ground beef at a suburban St. Louis supermarket, leaving police and health officials hoping the FBI can unravel the matter, officials said Friday. "It's a mystery," said Lisa Bedian, spokeswoman for the city of St. Peters, where the packages were found at a Schnucks store on Dec. 8 and Dec. 27.

"Something like this really is a needle in a haystack; you have to really test for specific substances" to narrow the possibilities in hopes of pinpointing what the objects are.

St. Peters officials have said there were no reports of any illnesses related to the suspected tampering, and that the public was first notified last week merely as a precaution.

Authorities were apprised Dec. 29 of the questioned packages, and preliminary analysis at the St. Charles County Sheriff's Department lab failed to identify the objects. The tests did, however, rule out the items as narcotics such as methamphetamines, cocaine or heroin, Bedian said.

Tests this week at the St. Louis County medical examiner's lab proved inconclusive Friday, she said.

The objects are to be forwarded to an FBI lab, with those tests expected to take weeks, Bedian said.

Bedian has declined to discuss why it took roughly three weeks for authorities to be notified after the first questioned package was found, or to describe the foreign objects beyond her information that "they look different." The cases, she has said, "are two isolated incidents."

"To speculate wouldn't be the right thing to do," she said last week. "We think it's very prudent to wait until we know exactly what we're dealing with."

Schnucks employees have been actively checking meat packages in the store while the investigation presses on, and they have been working with local and federal health officials to identify the foreign objects and the potential source, the city said.

The city urges consumers who buy plastic-wrapped meat at any location to double-check the wrapping to ensure it is intact, without any holes.