Saco police detectives continued to chase leads Thursday in their search for a person of interest who may have inserted two razor blades into bags of fresh pizza dough at the Saco Hannaford this week.
As of 5 p.m. Thursday, Deputy Chief Corey Huntress said investigators were still looking for the person of interest, but he would not say whether police are confident they know who the person is. If officers do not find and interview the person by Friday afternoon, the department is likely to release more information about the person and ask for the public’s help identifying them, he said.
“Hopefully, either way, we’ll have an update tomorrow afternoon,” he said.
He also said officers have not received any other reports of foreign objects found recently in pizza doughs.
Saco police were called to the store Tuesday after a customer returned a pizza dough purchased at the store that contained a razor blade inside. A search of the store’s inventory found one other dough that contained a razor, and a small number of bags that appeared to have been tampered with.
Hannaford recalled all fresh pizza doughs at the Saco store – including a Hannaford brand and dough branded Portland Pie Co. – purchased between 2 p.m. Monday and 10 p.m. Tuesday. The grocery retailer said customers should not consume the dough and return it to the store for a full refund.
Huntress on Thursday said police prefer to keep such operational information, such as the person’s identity, “close to the vest” until detectives can interview the person and rule them in or rule them out.
Huntress also said he did not know what difficulty the tampered-with dough will pose to forensics experts who may attempt to lift fingerprint or DNA information from the razor blades.
“It’s not a cookie-cutter case, that’s for sure,” Huntress said.
No injuries or illnesses have been reported because of the recall, Hannaford said Wednesday.
In a statement announcing the recall, Hannaford said the customer who returned the pizza dough is not believed to be the person responsible for inserting the razor blades, and on Thursday, Huntress said their investigation has so far ruled out that person.
Hannaford spokeswoman Ericka Dodge said the company believes a customer “maliciously tampered with the product,” but Dodge declined to say how the company reached that conclusion, and refused to provide more details.
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