For the previous 12 months, residents of New Zealand’s Waiheke Island have been discovering single sausages, wrapped in bread, left of their letterboxes.
As accusations fly and motives are questioned, victims of The Surfdale Sausager say the thriller is tearing the group aside.
The first sausage arrived in the summertime of 2022.
Wrapped in white buttered bread and coated in tomato sauce, it was chilly by the point Jacob Coetzee discovered it within the letterbox, although it seemed to have as soon as been barbecued.
Shrugging it off as a possible leftover from a drunken passerby, {the teenager} biffed it away and gave it no additional thought.
Until it occurred once more. And once more. Same kind of sausage, similar sauce, similar location. And then issues acquired even weirder.
“I sent a picture to my friend group and some of them had been sausaged as well. That’s when we realised we had a serial sausager on the island.”
That’s Waiheke that Coetzee’s referring to.
Just a 30-minute boat trip from downtown Auckland, the island’s identified for offering an elite retreat for the rich, a haven for different sorts, in addition to the wine from its 30-odd vineyards.
It was additionally the world’s fifth-best area as ranked by Lonely Planet in 2015; the place DJ Dimension broke self-isolation guidelines to grow to be New Zealand’s first Omicron group case, and residential to a long-empty home recorded as belonging to “His Majesty the King”.
It’s an uncommon place for an uncommon thriller, although not the one location to draw a letterbox larrikin. For a lot of 2016, Blenheim residents acquired what they thought had been low-fat muesli bars of their letterboxes, solely to seek out every wrapper contained a roll of cardboard.
The packaging had been meticulously resealed with glue or sellotape by the cereal prankster, who was by no means discovered.
And in 2021, the mysterious do-gooder who’d been leaving cash and notes in UK letterboxes lastly got here ahead, confirming to police it was merely a beneficiant act of kindness to unfold a little bit of cheer.
But again to Waiheke. As experiences of letterbox sausages continued to pour in, Coetzee, who lives within the suburb of Surfdale, started investigating.
Many of his mates had additionally acquired the small items and whereas some members of a neighborhood Facebook group puzzled whether or not “sausaging” was a euphemism for one thing unsavoury, others stated it’d occurred to them.
The modus operandi was nearly at all times the identical: sausage, white bread, butter and sauce, however the strategy was scattergun. Weeks and even months would move with out incident till out of the blue, a sausage.
“You never know when the strike will happen but when it does, everyone gets struck” he says.
“It’s traumatic. Nobodies’ letterboxes are safe.”
Once, the sausages got here wrapped in brown bread and of late are sans butter; whether or not that is a nod to the price of dwelling disaster or the fumbling of a poor copycat Coetzee would not know. He does know some native academics have been focused: “It’s that brazen”.
As the variety of strikes grew, so did suspicion amongst the residents. Who was The Surfdale Sausager? Was it multiple particular person? Or even, God forbid, an Aucklander?
“It’s ripping us apart; we can’t trust one another… I’ve been accused, my brothers been accused. It’s a witch hunt.”
The sausages had been nearly definitely Heller’s pre-cooked, and pricing them up at numerous outlets and fuel stations, Coetzee discovered they had been most cost-effective on the native grocery store.
Following questions from Stuff, and regardless of a “deep dive into the data”, a Countdown spokesperson was unable to substantiate they’d bought the gadgets, however despatched their ideas to the group.
“We can only imagine the fear that people are living in, not knowing whether today will be the day they will fall victim to The Surfdale Sausager.
“We’ll proceed to maintain a detailed eye on the small items part in-store and report any suspicious exercise to the related authorities.”
Countdown might have been a dead end, though Coetzee has one more bit of information: “Waiheke is the place the Mad Butcher lives. Just saying.”
The Mad Butcher, also known as Sir Peter Leitch, is quick to offer up all the reasons why he can’t be The Sausager. Firstly, he no longer owns the nationwide franchise; secondly, he still buys his sausages from the stores and, perhaps most importantly, would never biff them away.
“I’m flabbergasted. Sausages aren’t low-cost to make. I purchased some the opposite day from the Mad Butcher in Auckland, and so they tried to provide them to me totally free, and I stated ‘I am unable to try this’ in order that they gave me a reduction and even then they had been about $20 a kilo; who’s shopping for sausages simply to place them in individuals’s letterboxes? Amazing.”
Someone still very much in the meat business is Carol Forman who owns the island’s Humblepie Village Butchery. She’s cagey when confronted, denying she knows either who’s behind the strikes or having heard of them at all.
She does wonder if it might be a promotion for something, adding her sausages are already famous enough and that nobody in their right minds would throw them away.
What she does admit, however, is that her butcher is currently on leave: “I am unable to vouch for his whereabouts or what he is doing proper now, sorry.”
Nico Baigent has been hit at least three times, saying while it’s not an easy thing to talk about, he wants to both spread awareness of the issue and bring it to an end. The latter can only be done by uncovering who’s behind it.
“It is traumatic and I would like this to cease. It’s been happening for a lot too lengthy now.”
Unlike Forman though, he has a suspect; a friend by the name of Tamaoho Kii Keepa. His evidence is flimsy though he believes it all stacks up.
“When the primary individuals acquired hit everybody had images of the sausages; he claimed he’d acquired hit by The Sausager however did not have a photograph. He’s additionally the one particular person in our chat group who would not reside within the suburb.”
Baigent is quick to share his mate’s phone number, passing on a message to him or anyone else whose behind it all.
“You do not realise the toll it is taking in your victims. Please, no extra.”
“Hurt and betrayed” is how Kii Keepa describes feeling when Baigent’s accusation is put to him, insisting that not only is he not The Sausager but he was the very first of his victims.
“I’ve discovered them twice, one in Christmas paper and the opposite plain. Both instances my little sister discovered them and ran in to the home with them. It’s rampant.”
He’s not surprised his mate has tried to blame him but worries that while the finger-pointing continues The Sausager remains at large. He suspects a guy called Marvin but doesn’t have a number for him. Nobody else seems to have a number for Marvin either.
Yet another victim, speaking on the condition of anonymity, says everyone other than him is behind the spree: “I really feel a bit not noted, truly.”
There is, of course, nothing illegal about putting a sausage in someone’s letterbox and once they’d stopped laughing a police spokesperson said they’d received no reports of the antics.
Daniel Watson has sent hundreds of anonymous sausages around the country, having co-founded Send a Sausage a few years ago for a bit of a laugh.
Unlike the Surfdale snags, these cost $19.99, are inedible and come vacuum-sealed with an anonymous note. Every purchase sees the company provide a proper meal for someone in need.
Watson should be the best person to shed a bit of light into what sort of person would send someone a sausage, but he’s as mystified as everyone else.
“Our clientele is a whole combine. We’ve had uni college students sending them to mates; govt companions to one another; relations to one another. We’ve had senders from San Francisco and London; there is not any sample.”
Sausages are just funny, he says, and the beauty of finding one in your letterbox is there’s no point to it at all: “Just a mixture of confusion, laughter and a giant WTAF?”
And while he denies responsibility, he does have a message for whoever’s targeting Waiheke: “Get involved if you need an actual job.”
Clinical psychologist Dr Dougal Sutherland says that rather than tearing the community apart, the prankster is more than likely actually doing the opposite.
“It’s a little bit of enjoyable and brings everybody collectively as a result of they’re wrapped up in an antic that appears fairly innocent.”
People have long enjoyed a practical joke, especially if it’s played on someone else, and a sense of shared mystery is a nice distraction.
“People can speak about it and ask one another ‘have you ever been sausaged but?’, although that might be taken a number of methods.”
As for the motive? A bit of notoriety and a sense of pulling one over people is probably what’s driving the culprit, Sutherland suspects.
“This is somebody with a little bit of money and time, entry to a barbecue, most likely not a vegetarian and never significantly health-conscious therefore the white bread. We’re taking a look at somebody fairly clever and good at hiding.”
And while profiling is an inexact science, Sutherland is almost certain of one thing.
“Only a male would put a sausage in a letterbox. Freud would have a area day.”
