LINN COUNTY, Kan. - Was an attack on a farm this past summer somehow related to the sicknesses suffered by dozens of Mi Ranchito customers?
It was a bizarre crime in the quiet Kansas countryside.
There are still questions about a possible connection to the restaurant illnesses, which federal authorities say happened when employees spiked the salsa with a dangerous farm pesticide.
On a farm in Linn County, more than an hour south of Lenexa, a worker was discovered bound and gagged.
"Scary.... I just drove down there and he was tied up, bound up, in his pickup," said Fred Augur, who found the victim when he came over to help bale hay. "All I could see was his eyes, when I drove up. He was all duct taped up."
The victim told detectives he'd been tied up by three men with guns who demanded a half million dollars and who said the attack was to send a message to his boss.
His boss is the owner of Mi Ranchito restaurant, Rulber De la Torre.
De la Torre has said all along that he thought the restaurant problems were caused by someone who wanted to hurt his business.
Here's how the farm incident fits into the Mi Ranchito timeline:
A couple who got sick May 29.
The farm worker was tied up on July 8.
The mass sicknesses happened twice in August.
The sheriff's department in Linn County looked into this alleged assault and wasn't able to find out anything about the three suspects, there's been no sign of them. And then the victim disappeared.
Sheriff Barry Walker says he's not sure whether the victim went back to Mexico on his own, or is in the custody of immigration officials.
The Linn County neighbor, Augur, considers de la Torre and his workers good neighbors.
"I just enjoy working with them and being around them,” said Augur.
But the apparent kidnapping is the kind of crime that just doesn't happen around there.
The sheriff's department confirms the victim worked for de la Torre and it happened on de la Torre's farm.
No one involved in the case has confirmed any definite connection.
At the least, it's a weird coincidence.
We've been told that investigators from several agencies are aware of the farm incident.
Thursday's indictment does allege that Arnoldo Bazan, one of the suspects in the restaurant salsa poisoning, was stalking and threatening the restaurant owner during July.
