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Sunday, May 25, 2008
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Case of the floating feet

VANCOUVER: For the fourth time in less than a year, a right human foot has been found off one of four different islands in the Strait of Georgia in British Columbia.

The police said again on Friday they did not know if there were any links between them. Speculation in the region is rife, including that the feet were from slaying victims or they were the remains from a plane crash.

The police said a passerby found a human foot in a shoe on Kirkland Island in the South Arm of the Fraser River on Thursday. “It’s certainly a mystery we intend on solving,” a police spokeswoman said. “It’s certainly very unusual.”

Last August, a foot was found inside a man’s Reebok sneaker on nearby Gabriola Island, just a few days after another foot was discovered by beachcombers on Jedidiah Island. The remains of a third right foot were found on the east side of Valdez Island on February 8.

There is no evidence to suggest the foot — or any or the previous three — was forcibly removed. “All four were wearing socks and were in a running shoe,” the spokeswoman said.

There has been speculation that the feet may have come from a plane which hit the water three years ago killing five men off Quadra Island. Only one body was recovered. DNA profiles have been taken from the first three feet. Missing persons files were being examined.

Curtis Ebbesmeyer, a former Professor of oceanography at the University of Washington who studies floating objects, said when the third foot was found that the feet could have drifted from as far as 1,600 km away. He said the feet could have been severed or separated from the body on its own.

Professor Ebbesmeyer said left and right footwear often tend to wash up at different times at different places because they float differently. He added that there are beaches that collect mostly rights and other beaches that collect mostly lefts because the winds of currents sort out left and right foot wear. — AP

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