An Arby's manager in Broken Bow, Oklahoma has been charged with felony poisoning after police say surveillance footage caught her spitting directly into a customer's sandwich, and the customer is now suing after being diagnosed with herpes. Jennica Church stopped at the drive-thru after a bartending shift on March 28 and left with a meal she says changed her life. "I love Arby's," she told Scripps News Group. "Not anymore."
The Footage Does Not Lie
Police didn't build this case on vibes. Investigators obtained a search warrant for surveillance footage from the Broken Bow Arby's after an employee reported that a coworker had spit into a customer's meal, according to a police affidavit obtained by the New York Post.
What they found on that tape was not ambiguous. The affidavit alleges that footage from the night of March 28 shows manager Amanda Hendricks handling meat for a sandwich, then lowering her head toward the food. Police wrote that saliva could visibly be seen falling onto the sandwich.
After reviewing the video, authorities contacted Hendricks for an interview. That conversation apparently went well enough for investigators, because they subsequently sought a warrant charging her with felony poisoning with intent to injure. Not a write-up. Not a strongly worded letter to HR. A felony.
Church Thought They Were Just Annoyed She Came in Late
Church told Scripps News Group that she had finished a bartending shift before pulling into the drive-thru. She noticed her order was taking longer than expected and assumed the staff was irritated about the late-night visit. "It was taking a little bit of time," she said. "I thought they were mad at me because it was about to close."
They were mad, apparently. Just expressing it differently than she imagined.
Church later developed symptoms and was diagnosed with HSV-1, commonly known as oral herpes, according to the civil lawsuit she subsequently filed. The lawsuit names Hendricks, Arby's, and affiliated restaurant entities as defendants. Whether the contaminated sandwich definitively caused that diagnosis remains, as the New York Post notes, legally unresolved. But the timeline is what it is, and the surveillance footage is not helping the defense.
The Family Fallout
Here is where the story goes from ugly to genuinely gutting. Church's family shared the food, and the ripple effect of fear and uncertainty hit her household hard. Her mother-in-law, Patricia Dollarhite, told local station KJRH exactly what that looked like at the breakfast table.
"My son was sitting at my table, eating breakfast and he wanted a kiss, and he could not get one, so you bet I'm angry," Dollarhite said. "I see what it's doing to my grandchildren, my son, my husband."
No additional infections have been publicly reported among family members, but that does not make the anxiety of not knowing any less real. A late-night fast food run turned into a months-long medical and legal ordeal that is still playing out. The criminal case and the civil lawsuit are both ongoing.
What You Should Know About HSV-1
The New York Post includes some useful medical context here that is worth passing along. HSV-1 is extremely common and is typically associated with oral herpes. HSV-2 is more often linked to genital herpes, but either type can infect either location. The virus spreads primarily through direct contact with sores, saliva, or skin around the mouth or genitals, and it can spread even when no visible symptoms are present.
That last part is what makes tracing the exact source of any infection genuinely difficult, and it is almost certainly part of how the legal case will be contested. There is no cure and no licensed vaccine. Antiviral medications can manage outbreaks and reduce transmission risk, but the virus does not leave the body.
None of that changes what the surveillance camera allegedly recorded. A manager spitting into a sandwich is not a gray area, medically or legally.
Arby's Has Not Weighed In
The New York Post reports it has sought comment from local police, Church, and Hendricks. As of publication, there is no public response on record from any of them.
Arby's corporate, for their part, has not exactly rushed to the microphone on this one either. The brand whose entire identity is built around the slogan "We Have the Meats" is currently processing the news that one of its managers allegedly added an unlisted ingredient to the menu.
Hendricks' current employment status at the restaurant was not specified in the available reporting.
The Dingo Take
Let's be direct about what this story actually is: it is a person in a position of trust, who was given authority over food preparation and a set of keys, and who allegedly decided to use that position to deliberately harm a stranger. Not out of negligence. Not through a lapse in hygiene standards. Allegedly on purpose, on camera, at a late-night drive-thru window. Felony poisoning with intent to injure is the charge, and if the surveillance footage is what police say it is, that charge fits.
The civil lawsuit is going to be messy because HSV-1 sourcing is genuinely hard to prove in court, and defense attorneys will absolutely argue that the infection could have come from anywhere. That legal complexity is real. But the criminal case is not really about the diagnosis, it is about what Amanda Hendricks allegedly did to that sandwich and why. You do not need a virology degree to understand that spitting in a customer's food is poisoning. The law figured that out a long time ago.
Jennica Church stopped at an Arby's after work for a late meal. She is now a plaintiff in a lawsuit, a herpes diagnosis in her medical file, and a grandmother who can't kiss her grandchildren at the breakfast table. For a roast beef sandwich. The fast food industry has a lot of problems, but this one is not systemic or structural or fixable with better training materials. This is just a person who allegedly did something monstrous to someone she had never met. Oklahoma courts can sort out the rest.
