Three times now severed right feet have been found inside running shoes
This beach on Gabriola Island, in the Strait of Georgia, is one of three British Columbia spots where severed right feet have washed ashore in recent months.
YouNewsTV™Story Published: Mar 6, 2008 at 10:50 PM PST
Story Updated: Mar 6, 2008 at 10:50 PM PST
By DAN BURRITT, Associated Press Writer
VANCOUVER, British Columbia (AP) - Three times in less than a year, three right feet inside running shoes have been found near separate islands in the Strait of Georgia.
Police don't know if there are any links between them. Speculation in the region is rife, including that the feet were from slaying victims or they were the remains from drownings. Police haven't reached any conclusions.
"It is very unusual," Royal Canadian Mounted Police Constable Annie Linteau said Tuesday.
Linteau said two of the feet were size 12, but the size of the third was not released.
The first right foot was found by beachcombers on Jedidiah Island in August.
A few days later, a foot was found inside a man's Reebok sneaker on Gabriola Island. The third was found on the east side of Valdez Island on Feb 8. Only the shoe type for the second foot was announced.
"We're looking into all our missing person files," Linteau said. "We're certainly inviting anyone who may have information about these right feet to give us a call."
She said the coroner's office was doing DNA testing. British Columbia's corner's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Curtis Ebbesmeyer, a former professor of oceanography at the University of Washington who studies floating objects, said the feet could have drifted as far as 1,000 miles.
He speculated the feet floated away in the buoyant shoes after breaking from decomposing bodies, possibly of people who drowned in boating accidents. Others said they could be from four men whose bodies weren't recovered after their small plane crashed in the area about a year ago.
Ebbesmeyer said it might not be a coincidence the feet were found in the same general area.
"Left foot wear and right foot wear often tend to wash up at different times at different places because they float differently," he said. "There are beaches that collect mostly rights and other beaches that collect mostly lefts. The winds of the currents sort out left and right foot wear."
Sheila Malcolmson, a Gabriola Island government official, said the feet are the talk of the islands.
"We are all getting e-mails and messages from friends far away, saying, 'What's going on up there?"' Malcolmson said. "We're all walking around carefully."
Associated Press writer Rob Gillies in Toronto contributed to this report.
Map shows the most recent location where a missing foot was found, off the coast of Vancouver Island.
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World media enthralled by feet mystery
Canwest News Service
Published: Saturday, March 08, 2008
The story of how three severed feet -- all in sneakers, right feet only -- washed up on this Gulf Islands was bound to travel.
Since a boater spotted the third foot on tiny Valdez Island on Feb. 8, reports on the mysterious appendages have appeared everywhere from the Turkish Daily News in Istanbul to Australia's Melbourne Herald Sun.
Not even the BBC could resist the story's allure.
But while most papers relied on wire service reports for their feet coverage, the New York Times went one step further.
Recently, the Times sent Washington state correspondent William Yardley to Gabriola to investigate the story.
In a piece published this week, Yardley reported on locals and visitors who were by turns bemused, skeptical and a little frightened by the wave of orphan feet.
"It was such a hell of a big foot," Michele Geris, 51, told Yardley. Geris found the second of the three feet in August, nestled near a tree trunk on Gabriola Island.
"My theory is that it washed onto the beach and then an animal picked it up."
Others read more sinister motives into the mystery.
"The left feet are probably encased in concrete at the bottom of the strait," Frank Bond said. "And if it is a gang thing, I bet they're going to start taking those sneakers off before they do it again."
But while the world has now tuned in, RCMP investigators are no closer to solving the case.
Const. Annie Linteau told Yardley there are still no strong leads.
© The Vancouver Sun 2008
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