Area police were baffled by a woman in San Jose, Calif. who allegedly replaced orange juice bottles at a local Starbucks with those that were tainted. The confusion results from lack of motive as well as the fact that apparently the woman had no prior criminal record.
The woman who might be the one to have replaced the orange juice bottles with tainted ones is 50-year-old Ramineh Behbehanian, who will face charges including attempted murder, according to police.
ABC News reported that the Starbucks in which the orange juice bottles were replaced is located on the 6000 Block of Snell Avenue in the southern region of San Jose.
The Starbucks was evacuated on the evening of Monday, April 29. This occurred after a customer noticed that a woman was replacing the bottles as later discovered.
Police revealed that it was when the witness mentioned told a Starbucks employee about the juice bottle replacements being made that the woman fled the scene, likely after having overheard the conversation.
An employee at the Starbucks took down the license plate of the woman's car. It was when Starbucks employees investigated the bottles that had been left by the suspect and found upon opening them that they had a toxic smell to them, that the Fire Department in San Jose responded to the scene.
"The bottles were tested with hazardous materials equipment and were found to contain a mixture of isopropyl alcohol, or rubbing alcohol, police added," ABC News relayed in its report.
"Later that evening, police took Behbehanian into custody after she was found to be the owner of the car leaving the scene."
"Right now, we do not have any indication of further threats," Sgt. Jason Dwyer, a spokesman for the San Jose Police Department, said to ABC News. "We believe she acted alone and, so far, we have no further information leading us to believe that she was a part of a group."
Though it is not yet certain whether Behbehanian has hired a lawyer, she has claimed that she may, according to police.
"She was expected to be arraigned within the next 48 hours, Dwyer said, but a court date had not been set," ABC News says. "In the meantime, Behbehanian was being held without bail at the Elmwood Complex Women's Facility."
The contents of the entire cold case in which the bottles were switched were poured out as a precautionary measure by Starbucks employees. Nearby Starbucks were put on alert about making sure their bottles were tightly sealed and monitored.
"No one consumed the juice and, again, our partners and our customers did the right thing by acting quickly," Zack Hutson, a spokesperson for Starbucks, told ABC News. "We destroyed the juice [and so did] our partner in the other area."
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