5th human foot washes up on B.C. shore

Yet another human foot has washed up along the British Columbia coast.

By JEREMY HAINSWORTH

The Associated Press

VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- A fifth human foot in a year has washed ashore off the coast of British Columbia, and this time it's a left one.

Police said two people out for a walk spotted the left foot floating in water off Westham Island on Monday morning.

Delta Police Const. Sharlene Brooks said officials are working with the B.C. Coroner's office to see if this foot is linked to any other partial remains recovered in the province.

Westham Island is at the mouth of the Fraser River, about 15 miles south of Vancouver.

"A passerby noticed a shoe floating in the water, pulled it in and notified police," Brooks said. "We're treating it as a criminal investigation."

While the similarities to the other found feet is strong, she said there's no indication this foot is related to the other cases.

"We're certainly not discounting the possibility that this may be linked to the other recovered feet, but it's just too premature and very speculative for us to even entertain that right now," she said.

The last foot was found May 22 on Kirkland Island in the Fraser River, about one mile away from Monday's discovery.

The first in the series was found nearly a year ago on Jedidiah Island in the Strait of Georgia. Within days, another right foot was found inside a man's Reebok sneaker on nearby Gabriola Island. The third was found in the same area, on the east side of Valdez Island in early February.

The origin on any of the remains is still unknown.

"This might take a long time," Brooks said. "This is not CSI." She said in order to identify the foot, other remains from the body or identifying material such as a DNA would be needed. "It's going to be pretty difficult."

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police has said there's no evidence the feet were severed or removed from the victims' legs by force.

Make it 6.

Yeah, odd as hell. Was just gonna post that.

Sixth human foot found in Campbell River

Second foot this week including one found in Ladner
Vancouver Sun
Published: Wednesday, June 18, 2008

CAMPBELL RIVER - A human foot was discovered on the Tyee Spit Wednesday morning just north of the Argonaut Wharf, according to a Campbell River Mirror news story.

The foot was discovered at about 10:30 a.m. by a woman picking rocks on the ocean side of the spit. The woman asked Sandra Malone, manager of the Thunderbird RV Park, to call the police, who shortly arrived with a forensics team.

While she was waiting, Malone went down to look at the foot, which was lying above the high tide line about a metre from the grass. She said she saw a foot in a black men's running shoe. She said she saw two bones sticking out of the shoe, and that the bones appeared to have been cut.

The foot is the sixth found washed up on B.C. shorelines since last August. So far, four right feet and one left foot have been found. Eyewitnesses said the foot found on the Tyee Spit appeared to be a right foot.

Sixth human foot washes ashore in Canada
Increasingly odd case started year ago

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

CAMPBELL RIVER, B.C. -- A bizarre case that has baffled British Columbia officials grew even more bizarre Wednesday.

A sixth human foot -- and the second one this week -- washed up on shore. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police says it appears to be a right foot.

RCMP Sgt. Mike Tresoor of the Campbell River detachment on the east coast of Vancouver Island said police received a call from a citizen Wednesday morning who reported finding a body part on a beach on Tyee Spit.

No other remains were found.

The foot is the latest in the increasingly strange case.

The first foot was found nearly a year ago on Jedidiah Island in the Strait of Georgia.

Within days, another right foot was found inside a man's Reebok sneaker on nearby Gabriola Island.

The third foot was found in the same area, on the east side of Valdez Island in early February.

The fourth foot was found May 22 on Kirkland Island in the Fraser River, less than a mile from a site in Ladner, along the same river south of Vancouver, where the fifth foot was found Monday.

RCMP say the remains of the latest foot were found inside a size 10 black Adidas running shoe.

Tresoor said major crime investigators from the Campbell River detachment, along with staff from the coroner's office, went to the scene to investigate.

"The object will ultimately be examined by a forensic pathologist in attempts to determine the source of the foot and if it is related to other feet recently found," Tresoor said in a statement.

On Tuesday, Terry Smith, the chief coroner of British Columbia, said officials have DNA profiles from the first three of the feet that washed ashore in the Gulf Islands and Fraser River.

But Smith said the DNA samples taken from the feet have not been matched with any known samples to determine identities.

Smith and others have already put forth the hypothesis that the feet have washed ashore because they were encased in buoyant running shoes. Curtis Ebbesmeyer, an oceanographer based in Seattle, said when a human body is submerged in the ocean, the main parts like arms, legs, hands, feet and the head are usually what come off the body.

He said his theory is that the feet came along as a result of an accident that might have happened up along the Fraser River, that washed down and spread out along the Straight of Georgia.

Ebbesmeyer said when the third foot was found the feet could have drifted from as far as 1,000 miles away. Ebbesmeyer said the feet could have been severed or detached from their bodies on their own.

This shit makes no sense at all. Theories anyone? I'm thinking there's a Dr. Demento out there somewhere.

Gotta be some serial killer. Or could just be some sicko whith access to human remains, like a worker at a funeral home or something.

At one point they were thinking it could be from some shipwreck or plane crash or something. But if that's the case, why only right feet?

I thought this was funny:

Ya think it might be related to the other 5 human right feet washed up in the same area?

Latest floating 'foot' turns out to be a hoax

(CNN) -- What was believed to be the sixth human foot to wash up on the shores of British Columbia in recent months proved to be a fake, authorities said Thursday.

A "skeletonized animal paw" had been placed in a sock and athletic shoe that was packed with dried seaweed, the British Columbia Coroners Service announced.

The hoax was uncovered as the coroner's office began DNA and other forensic tests on the supposed foot in an attempt to identify the person to whom it belonged.

The coroners service, a forensic pathologist and an anthropologist all examined the shoe and remains before declaring it a fake.

"It is the position of BCCS that this type of hoax is reprehensible and very disrespectful to the families of missing persons," authorities said in a written statement. "It fuels inappropriate speculation and creates undue anxiety for families and communities while wasting valuable investigative time and resources that could be spent on the main investigations."

Police initially believed that a right human foot had been found in a man's size 10 black Adidas athletic shoe. The grisly discovery was made Wednesday. Video Watch woman talk about the mystery »

The find came amid conjecture over the source of five other severed human feet that have been found along the Canadian province's Pacific coast in the past 11 months. Authorities are continuing to investigate multiple possibilities on the origin of the feet, from foul play to the possibility that they belonged to victims of a plane crash.

"We are exploring the possibility that it could be people who may have drowned," said Annie Linteau, a spokeswoman for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. "It could be missing fishermen. It could be the remains of people who may have died in a plane crash."

When asked about the suspicion of foul play, Linteau noted that the first four feet contained no tool marks and were therefore deemed not to have been severed.

A woman walking on the beach reported the sixth find, said Sgt. Mike Tresoor of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in the town of Campbell River on Vancouver Island, British Columbia.

Sandra Malone, manager of the Thunderbird RV Park and Campground on the Tyee Spit, said a woman came in about 10:30 a.m. and asked her to call police, saying she had found the shoe with the foot inside it.

While waiting for police, Malone said, she walked to the beach with the woman and saw it for herself.

"The leg bones were coming out of the running shoe about 3 to 4 inches," she said. "There were no tissues or anything attached."

She said seaweed was wrapped around the top of the running shoe, making it hard to tell whether any tissue was inside the shoe. But she said the foot appeared to have been deliberately severed, as the bones "had been cut clean across."

Another foot -- a left foot still in a shoe -- was found Monday on the shore of Westham Island, south of Vancouver. Police said it was taken to a coroner for DNA testing.

The Vancouver Sun newspaper said the first four feet found were all right feet, making the foot found Monday the only left foot.

Experts told The Sun there could be explanations that did not suggest foul play.

Ian Buckingham, a retired coroner, told the newspaper the ankle joint can come apart easily if a body is decomposing at sea.

Curtis Ebbesmeyer, an expert on ocean currents, told The Sun a foot wearing a buoyant athletic shoe could float as far as 1,000 miles.

Although the gruesome finds have drawn international attention, police said it may take some time to unravel the mystery.

"We suffer from the 'CSI' effect: People think this can happen very quickly," Brooks said. "It could take weeks or months. And even if we get a DNA sample, we need a sample to match it with."

The mystery has caused a stir and led to many rumors, locals say. One newspaper has began investigating a rash of young men who have gone missing in the area.

Some have wondered whether the feet could belong to five men who were in a plane that crashed three years ago in the waterway where the feet were found.

Some of those men's relatives were at the Campbell River site on Wednesday.

"It's a constant reminder every time, from the time the first foot washed up," said Kirsten Stevens, whose husband, Dave, died in the crash. Although her husband's body was located, Stevens said, the other men's relatives never recovered their loved ones' remains.

"It reopens the wound every single time," she said.

Yeah, that was in the news here this morning.

Still, only makes it slightly less odd. 5 human right feet washing up on the San Juans :huh:

I know. It's a stumper. And all wearing warm weather type shoes. Sneakers, etc. And right feet.

Swedish police puzzled by foot in shoe on beach
Forensic experts checking foot against a national registry of missing people

updated 3:16 p.m. CT, Tues., July. 8, 2008

STOCKHOLM, Sweden - Swedish police said they have found a human foot inside a shoe, which washed up on a beach near one of the country's most popular tourist resorts.

Police said the discovery was made Tuesday in Tylosand near Halmstad on the southwest coast. Police spokesman Christer Harplinger said it included a shoe "containing a sock, with a foot inside it."

Forensic experts in southern Sweden are checking the foot against a national registry of missing people.

In Canada, several running shoes containing human feet have been found on island shorelines along the Strait of Georgia. Canadian authorities say they haven't reached any conclusions about the origin of the feet.

Two feet washed ashore in B.C. from same person

Updated Thu. Jul. 10 2008 3:04 PM ET

CTV.ca News Staff

Two of the five feet found in British Columbia over the past year came from the same man, police from that province said Thursday.

Appearing at a news conference, RCMP Const. Annie Linteau said there is no evidence of trauma or tool markings to suggest the feet were severed.

"It appears it's a natural process of decomposition," she said, adding, "We have to be aware these still could be homicide victims."

Police say the identities of the victims remain a mystery that they are working to solve. They have compiled a list of all missing persons from British Columbia, and some from Alberta, and are reviewing each file for possible connections to this case.

Their list began with 243 men and 159 women but they have eliminated 130 of the men as possible matches, Linteau said.

She said they have not found any evidence that indicates the incidents are connected but all possibilities are being investigated.

The first foot was found on Jedidiah Island, in the strait that divides Vancouver Island from the mainland, on Aug. 20. It was a right foot inside a Campus-brand men's size 12 running shoe that was mainly distributed in India, police said.

Six days later, another right foot -- inside a man's size 12 Reebok running shoe -- washed ashore on Gabriola Island.

A third, a right foot in a Nike sneaker, was found in the area on Feb. 8 on the east side of Valdez Island.

The fourth and fifth feet were both found near the Fraser River. The fourth came ashore on Kirkland Island on May 22 and was the only one of the five that came from a woman's body. It was found in a New Balance running shoe.

The fifth, a size 10 left foot, was located a kilometre away on June 16. It was later determined to be a match to the foot found months earlier on Valdez Island.

A sixth washed-up shoe was found to be a hoax when police realized it had been stuffed with an animal's paw.

Families wait for results

Family members of two plane crash victims who disappeared in 2005 believe the feet may be those of their loved ones.

After analyzing DNA samples from the feet and members of the crash victims' families, police determined the feet did not belong to Arnie Feast or Fabian Bedard, two of four people who went missing after the crash.

The DNA from the family of brothers Doug and Trevor DeCock is still being analyzed, said Linteau.

The DNA tests tell little else about the feet's original owners, said forensic scientist Dean Hilderbrand. The type of analysis being used, the most common DNA test among North American law enforcement, does not indicate the race of the subject or the date of death, he said.

"These were obviously very challenging samples," he said. "The DNA doesn't give any information about how long these samples have been in the water."

The news conference featured speakers from the RCMP, B.C. Coroner's Office and the Delta Police Service. They showed pictures of the types of sneakers found and listed the years in which each shoe was sold, appealing for help from people whose loved ones may have disappeared wearing similar shoes.

When asked about a foot found in Sweden this week, Linteau said they had no indication it was connected to their investigation.

New mystery foot found on Wash. state shoreline

By KOMO Staff and Peninsula Daily News
Watch the story

PYSHT, Wash. - A shoe containing bones and flesh has been discovered on a remote Strait of Juan de Fuca beach about 40 miles west of Port Angeles, 14 miles from the Canadian shoreline.

The grisly discovery comes nearly a year after the first of five sneakers containing human feet were found washed ashore in British Columbia, triggering one of the most bizarre cases in provincial history.

The latest shoe, described as a hiking boot, does not match any of those discovered earlier in Canada. But, like four of the five others already found, it is a right foot.

A camper found the large black, high-top shoe in seaweed while walking along the shore near the mouth of Jim Creek on Friday, and relayed the discovery to the Clallam County Sheriff's Department at about 2:30 p.m. Saturday.

Clallam County Undersheriff Ronald Peregrin said the shoe could have been there for a long time before it was found.

He thought that it probably washed ashore during high tide because of its position, tangled among seaweed and other debris, and could have been there for weeks or even longer. He has notified Canadian authorities about the discovery.

The site where it was found is about 14 miles from the nearest Canadian shoreline - the southern coast of Vancouver Island on the north side of the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

Clallam County Detective Sgt. Lyman Moores said the shoe probably belonged to a man, although he couldn't identify the brand or size.

The remains were covered with a sock and tucked inside the shoe.

"A shoe with a sock in it, some bones and flesh and stuff in it appeared to be human bones," said Jim Shay, the camper who discovered the shoe.

Moores said he doesn't have any idea where it came from - or if the decomposing bones and flesh belong to a person or an animal.

A sixth foot found in June in B.C. was determined to be an animal paw that had been shoved inside an athletic shoe as a hoax.

"We're a little apprehensive since the last one was a hoax," Moores said of the shoe found near the logging settlement of Pysht between Port Angeles and the town of Clallam Bay.

The bones and flesh should be identified as human or not by the end of this week, Moores said.

A cadaver dog were brought to the scene on Sunday to see if it could detect any other remains, but nothing else was found on a mile-long stretch of shoreline near the site of the shoe's discovery.

Clallam County Undersheriff Ronald Peregrin said one oddity about the shoe's location is that tides in the Strait of Juan de Fuca don't really move toward Canada. Instead, they move east and west.

Five athletic shoes containing human feet have been found along the Strait of Georgia between Vancouver Island and the British Columbia mainland since August 2007.

The bizarre findings baffled Canadian officials.

The first foot was found nearly a year ago on Jedidiah Island in the Strait of Georgia. Within days, another right foot was found inside a man's Reebok sneaker on nearby Gabriola Island.

The third foot was found in the same area, on the east side of Valdez Island in February. The fourth foot was found in May on Kirkland Island in the Fraser River, less than a mile from a the site where the fifth foot was found later on.

So far, one of the five feet has been linked to a depressed man who went missing a year ago, and two of the other feet were determined to be from the same unknown person. One of the feet belongs to a woman; the rest are men's feet.

Beyond that, the shoes and their origins remain am enigma.

Adding to the mystery is the discovery of a footless body found on an Orcas Island beach in March 2007 - about five months before the first detached foot appeared in Canada. Authorities are trying to determine whether there is a connection between the body and any of the feet.

Curtis Ebbesmeyer, an oceanographer based in Seattle, said when a human body is submerged in the ocean, main parts like arms, legs, hands, feet and the head are usually what come off the body.

Ebbesmeyer said the feet could have been severed or detached from their bodies on their own.