Arrest made in macabre ‘human flesh' teddy bear prank in Southern California
The bizarre incident unfolded just after 12:00 p.m. outside an AMPM store in the 1300 block of Bear Valley Road, officials with the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department confirmed to KTLA.
Deputies responded to the location on a report of human remains spotted outside the convenience store, which was cordoned off with yellow crime scene tape, while a coroner's investigator examined the teddy bear before placing it in a pink-colored plastic bag for further examination at the department.
The macabre story quickly went viral, catching the attention of a special-effects prop artist in Summerville, South Carolina whose company, Dark Seed Creations, specializes in making human-flesh like dolls, including the 'Human Skin Teddy Bear,' which sells on the popular online marketplace Etsy for $165.
'You can't make this sh*t up! One of my skin teddy bears has apparently been involved in a prank that brought police attention! This is f****** wild!' a Facebook post from Dark Seed Creations read shortly after the news broke.
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The artist, Robert Kelly, told KTLA that the teddy bear and other similar props get their macabre look from their latex coverings and that he did, in fact, sell one of the teddy bears to a customer in Victorville last week.
In a news release put out this after, SBCSD officials said a man identified as 23-year-old Victorville resident Hector Corona Villanueva was arrested in connection with the prank.
'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,' officials said.
The 23-year-old was booked for causing the report of an emergency while knowing it to be false and intentionally and wrongfully planting evidence to falsely present as real.
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