A Bainbridge Island woman arrested earlier this month for allegedly shoplifting more than $1,300 in health and beauty products from Central Market in Poulsbo has been questioned by police for her involvement in a case in a food-tampering incident at the Poulsbo Walmart.

Poulsbo police arrested Daniel Oaks Thieman, 33, of Kingston after Walmart employees found a syringe that had been stuck into a Jimmy Dean sausage-tube package and left in the refrigerated meat case at the Poulsbo market.

The discovery was made shortly after 6 a.m. Friday, Oct. 25. Walmart workers were unable to find the needle to the syringe, but found another sausage tube nearby with a hole poked in the package.

Worried about public safety, workers then removed all the food products from that area of the store — valued at more than $19,000 — and had them destroyed.

The entire section, which was 80 feet long with five or six rows of food items, was emptied. Workers then disinfected the refrigerated shelving area and made special orders to replace the lost food.

Store employees reviewed surveillance video and saw a man reaching into the meat display shelves and handling the food where the syringe had been found just before 1 a.m. Oct. 25. He was also seen walking around the store with a woman in her 20s.

Police were able to track down the man later in the day after officers were talking about the incident with their colleagues in the department. Another Poulsbo officer recalled finding two people that matched the description of the Walmart pair after the officer responded to a 911 call of two people passed out in a running black Ford Focus in the parking lot of the Central Market in Poulsbo, about five hours before the incident at Walmart.

Police found the vehicle was registered to Stephenie E. Krueger, a 30-year-old Bainbridge Island woman who had been arrested for shoplifting at the Central Market on Oct. 8. She was later charged with a felony count of second-degree theft.

In the vehicle with Krueger was Thieman, who is also known to Bainbridge Island police.

Bainbridge police stopped Thieman after finding him on Winslow Way at 3 a.m. a few days before the Walmart incident.

According to court documents, Thieman — who was wearing the same clothes as he did during his later visit to Walmart — allegedly admitting to having a serious daily heroin addiction.

Police later found Thieman in an acquaintance’s travel trailer in Hansville.

Thieman allegedly told police that he had jabbed the syringe into the meat package, but that it was unused and did not have a needle. He also told police that it was a “ridiculously stupid” thing to do.

Thieman was booked into Kitsap County Jail after he was examined for a swollen left index finger at St. Anthony Hospital in Gig Harbor.

He was charged with placing a poison or other harmful object in food, a felony, and first-degree malicious mischief. Bail was set at $250,000.

Thieman is also being held on a charge of failing to appear in court on an earlier charge.

Krueger was not charged in the alleged food-tampering incident.

Police noted in court papers that Walmart surveillance video showed Krueger placing items in her purse while walking through Walmart, but she later removed the items and left the store after finding Thieman asleep in the store’s Subway sandwich shop, about an hour after he allegedly placed the syringe in the sausage tube.

Krueger later told police she did not know that Thieman had tampered with food in the store, but said she had been trying to shoplift some items before a store employee confronted her and told her to empty her purse or police would be called.

She did just that, and then left the store with Thieman.