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Those floating feet again

VANCOUVER: Another human foot was discovered on Wednesday on a British Columbia shoreline, the second one this week and the sixth within a year in a bizarre mystery that has confounded the police.

Like most of the others, it was a right foot encased in a running shoe. A citizen spotted it on a beach and no other remains were found.

All of these feet were recovered within a few kilometres of one another along island shorelines in the Strait of Georgia, which lies to the south and west of the Canadian provincial capital of Vancouver.

Authorities say they have not reached any conclusions about the origin of the feet but are working to determine if there are any links to any other partial remains recovered in the province.

A spokeswoman for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, which is in charge of the investigation, says it could be remains of a missing fishermen, perhaps a body from a plane crash. She would not speculate on the possibility of foul play.

“In the first four cases, we did not find any evidence the feet were severed,” she said. “It’s too early to say if this foot was severed.”

“It’s very unusual,” she added. “Too my knowledge, we have not encountered anything like this.”

The chief coroner of British Columbia said DNA profiles from the first three feet had not helped determine identities because they did not match any existing samples.

It has been suggested that the feet did not sink but floated to shore because they were encased in buoyant running shoes.

Explanation

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 along the Straight of Georgia. — AP

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