Chesterton Police are investigating a suspicious incident on Tuesday at the Sunrise Cafe at 475 N. Sandcreek Drive, in which a death threat was apparently made against an employee by a group of customers.

According to police, at 1 p.m. four female customers, one in her sixties, the others 25 to 35 years of age, took a table at the restaurant and, when the server arrived to take their order, began to give her “a hard time,” changing their order several times and chanting about frogs. The server subsequently advised the investigating officer that she heard the older customer to say, evidently referring to the server, “We need to find out where she lives. We need her heart.”

The server, feeling uncomfortable, asked another employee to wait on the customers, police said, but on noticing one of the customers go into the restroom and “feeling that something was not quite normal,” later went into the restroom herself and observed two dice and a syringe on the counter.

After paying for their meal, police said, the customers did not immediately exit the restaurant but “were just hanging around” until finally the owner asked them to leave. On walking into the parking lot, police said, they were seen to throw salt on the ground at the front and rear door, then start to chant and dance at their vehicle, a green Ford Explorer with an Indiana license plate.

The server advised the officer that she heard them to chant that they know where she lives and that “she is going to die.”

Police took the two dice and syringe into evidence.

Posted 10/2/2008