Owner pops up, cracking the case of Pepsi machine in a potato field
ST. LEONARD, N.B.— Police say they have found the owner of a wayward Pepsi machine discovered in a New Brunswick potato field.
The vending machine was one of two found abandoned in a field southwest of Grand Falls, N.B., on Sept. 29 by workers clearing a potato field.
One vending machine was traced to a local Walmart, but the serial number on the Pepsi machine didn’t match reports of any stolen machines, said RCMP Const. Daniel Lé- vesque of St-Léonard, N.B.
After their investigation went nowhere, police issued a press release on Wednesday with a photo of an apparently intact machine and asked for the public’s help.
“In this case, we had a couple vending machines stolen here and there throughout the region, but none of their serial codes was matching the one that we had over here, so we figured the press release would be one last effort to try and find its owner, because nothing was working,” Lévesque said.
Within four hours, a Pepsi representative had contacted them and helped RCMP track down its owner — the same Walmart in Grand Falls, which is a town of about 5,300 near the Maine-New Brunswick border.
Lévesque said the file — and the Pepsi machine — have now been turned over to local police.
He said the machines had been stripped of all contents and money. Both no longer work.
“They must have been there for a little bit, because they were damaged by the weather,” he said.