Police Struggle to Explain Washed-Up Human Feet | Newsweek International

A bizarre mystery baffles British Columbia.

By Winston Ross | Newsweek Web Exclusive

Jun 24, 2008 | Updated: 4:53 p.m. ET Jun 24, 2008

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When the first tennis shoe-clad human foot washed up on the rocky uninhabited shores of Jedediah Island in British Columbia's Georgia Strait last August, it was strange but not unprecedented. Feet encased in sneakers are less likely to decompose quickly and more likely to float than other limbs, thanks to the shoes' buoyancy. They've been known to surf their way onto beaches from Australia to Great Britain, presumably lost by people who drowned or died in plane crashes whose bodies were never recovered.

But then came a second foot, found 60 miles from the first just six days later, bobbing in the saltwater off Gabriola Island. A third was found on Feb. 8, off Valdes Island to the south, and a fourth on May 22, at Kirkland Island. A beachcomber pulled a fifth to shore on Westham Island after noticing it in the water on June 16. All five were discovered within 125 miles of one another, floating in the same circle of currents that wraps around the strait, leading to increasing speculation that the lost limbs may be connected somehow.

The macabre discoveries have attracted armchair investigators from around the globe and inspired a couple of twisted pranksters. An anonymous posting on Craigslist last week urged readers to "have some fun" and "take a raw turkey drumstick, tie it inside one of your old running shoes and throw it in the ocean late at night when no one can see, or drop it off the ferry from the car deck. Then watch the news." A sixth foot, found at Campbell River on June 19, turned out to be an animal appendage wrapped in seaweed and crammed into a shoe-seemingly a sick joke on the cops and local citizens, who are gobbling up any details about the story they can find.

The joke isn't funny, however, to relatives of British Columbians gone missing in recent years, who are awaiting identification of the floating limbs and praying that the results might contain clues to the fate of their loved ones. In February 2005, a float plane went down shortly after it took off in Campbell River, killing the pilot and four passengers aboard. "I can't help but hope for closure," said Kirsten Stevens, a Campbell River resident whose husband Dave's body was the only one recovered from the crash. Stevens' friends are among the other victims. "We can't rule [a connection to the crash] out yet."

The body of Stevens' husband was discovered intact, which means that it's impossible for all five of the newly found feet to belong to the remaining victims of the same crash. (Investigators have already ruled out two of the crash victims from 2005 as possibilities because the DNA wasn't a match. At this point, it's "very unlikely" that the other feet belong to the victims of this crash, says Annie Linteau, a spokeswoman for the Royal Canadian Mounted Policy, given the way currents move in the area.)

Each of the appendages found since last August have been right feet, another oddity that only fuels the speculation about what might have happened to tie these decomposing body parts together. Criminal attorney and Vancouver author Michael Slade has said publicly that he thinks a serial killer may be on the loose. That theory is gaining traction online, particularly from critics who contend that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police aren't working hard enough to figure out the victims' identity. "Let's face it, unless another foot is found at the donut shop, the cops are not going to catch anybody," wrote a commenter on the Vancouver Sun's Web site last week. Others are advancing their own pet theories online. "This is some freak who has access to dead bodies, like a mortician or [embalmer] and the fact that those bodies are already dead and accounted for nobody would find a DNA match," wrote another commenter on the Sun's website. "Time for the RCMP to spy on morticians with boats." And another: "Maybe it is a prank being done by anyone that works with cadavers. Some university students having a good laugh."

portlandtrout, my intention was not to make a joke but offer a premise for consideration based on an article I read several years ago about a phenomenon that was noticed that thongs (flip-flops) that were washed up on some beaches were all right footed while on other beaches they were all left footed. It wasn't something I made up but read, though I don't have a reference at hand. I will try to find one, but maybe someone else out there knows of such a report or research. Take two boats that are the same but fix the rudder on one to the left and to the right on the other. Put them in the water at the same starting point. Would it be idiotic to suggest that these two boats could end up in very different places? Now put another boat of the same style in the water at the same starting point with its rudder fixed to the right. Which bet would you place? That the boat will end up closest to where the left rudder boat ended up or to where the right rudder boat ended up? (And, regarding another's comment, this isn't about duck decoys on a still pond but a boat with a rudder fixed to one side subjected to ocean currents.) The fact that five right shoes have turned up and no left shoes appears evidence enough to give the premise some consideration. (And the left footed shoes, if they floated free in the same manner, could therefore end up in a very different location than the right footed shoes, regardless of whether they originated in the Puget Sound area or not.) The above again is a premise for consideration. Why can't the shoes have come down the Inside Passage or the Strait of Juan de Fuca? And, if so, why couldn't they have come then from the ocean into these passages? I'm not suggesting they did, but it's not outside the realm of possibility. Don't things from the Pacific Ocean find their way into Puget Sound? (I don't know, I'm asking.) And, if so, why couldn't they have crossed the ocean in the first place. In any event, if the five unlucky souls suffered an accident leading to their deaths at the same time and place, it's not all that unlikely that the right foot of each person, each floating within a shoe, each made similar journeys. Who knows, there might have been many more than five people altogether but this sample of five have happened to have made similar journeys. It'll be interesting to hear what the DNA testing turns up, though if the findings show that not all five people were born in the same place, it doesn't mean they weren't in the same place at the time of the accident, whether boat, plane or tsunami, which could have been one that hit Japan or elsewhere in the Pacific. Though, as others indicate by their disbelief, the most likely scene of an accident would seem to be in the Puget Sound area. But that doesn???t mean ruling out other locations as the possible starting point.

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Posted By: steelerslover @ 06/25/2008 2:39:14 PM

The only problem with that would be that her foot would have to travel through the Panama Canal--Aruba is on the other side of the US., this is on the west side, Aruba is below Cuba, right above Venezuela.
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Posted By: jdinperthwa @ 06/25/2008 1:03:29 PM

portlandtrout, my intention was not to make a joke but offer a premise for consideration based on an article I read several years ago about a phenomenon that was noticed that thongs (flip-flops) that were washed up on some beaches were all right footed while on other beaches they were all left footed. It wasn't something I made up but read, though I don't have a reference at hand. I will try to find one, but maybe someone else out there knows of such a report or research. Take two boats that are the same but fix the rudder on one to the left and to the right on the other. Put them in the water at the same starting point. Would it be idiotic to suggest that these two boats could end up in very different places? Now put another boat of the same style in the water at the same starting point with its rudder fixed to the right. Which bet would you place? That the boat will end up closest to where the left rudder boat ended up or to where the right rudder boat ended up? (And, regarding another's comment, this isn't about duck decoys on a still pond but a boat with a rudder fixed to one side subjected to ocean currents.) The fact that five right shoes have turned up and no left shoes appears evidence enough to give the premise some consideration. (And the left footed shoes, if they floated free in the same manner, could therefore end up in a very different location than the right footed shoes, regardless of whether they originated in the Puget Sound area or not.) The above again is a premise for consideration. Why can't the shoes have come down the Inside Passage or the Strait of Juan de Fuca? And, if so, why couldn't they have come then from the ocean into these passages? I'm not suggesting they did, but it's not outside the realm of possibility. Don't things from the Pacific Ocean find their way into Puget Sound? (I don't know, I'm asking.) And, if so, why couldn't they have crossed the ocean in the first place. In any event, if the five unlucky souls suffered an accident leading to their deaths at the same time and place, it's not all that unlikely that the right foot of each person, each floating within a shoe, each made similar journeys. Who knows, there might have been many more than five people altogether but this sample of five have happened to have made similar journeys. It'll be interesting to hear what the DNA testing turns up, though if the findings show that not all five people were born in the same place, it doesn't mean they weren't in the same place at the time of the accident, whether boat, plane or tsunami, which could have been one that hit Japan or elsewhere in the Pacific. Though, as others indicate by their disbelief, the most likely scene of an accident would seem to be in the Puget Sound area. But that doesn???t mean ruling out other locations as the possible starting point.
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Posted By: aliciainsd @ 06/25/2008 12:53:57 PM

The great britan part was from body parts from a plane crash in australia making it all the way to great britan. It's a little wierd that they are all coming so close together, I think that it is a mortician or someone like that, Maybe they cut the leg higher up , then fasten the leg to a dock or something so that part of the foot will eventually come off by itself and it wont look like the foot was severed by a tool. Gross, or maybe it really is just people have drowned and it is a concidence.