Sixth severed foot washes ashore in B.C.

The B.C. Coroners Service has confirmed the remains to be human, but no further identification – including the gender – has been made.

The discovered remains is the sixth severed foot to wash ashore along the B.C. coast.

The first foot was found in August 2007 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 2009. 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.

Canadian authorities said they’ve found no indications of foul play in relation to the severed feet; they said the remains appear to have separated from the body through a natural process.

A sixth severed foot was thought to be found along the B.C. coast in June 2008, but it was later determined to be a hoax. Investigators said the shoe contained an animal paw inside a sock packed with dried seaweed.

In August 2008, a severed foot was found at a beach in Port Angeles. It is not known whether this incident is linked to any of the feet found in B.C.

Expert: The severing likely natural

Some believe the feet are related to organized crime, that it is the result of a form of punishment. Others think someone may be playing a practical joke. Many believe there is something sinister behind it.

But one expert believes otherwise.

One of the most perplexing questions: why are they just finding feet? Top forensic bug scientist Gail Anderson knows why.

With the help of the Venus Project, an underwater lab, she’s done some of the only experiments on what happens to bodies underwater.

“We understand a lot about decomposition on land,” said Anderson. “We’re just scratching the surface now in the ocean.”

Anderson put freshly-killed pigs in deep water with very low oxygen and no light. Later, she got a surprise.

“We got massive scavenging to the point where both animals were completely skeletonized within less that four weeks,” she said.

Anderson said the same thing would happen to a human body, but sneakers would protect the feet. And once released from the body, the buoyant sneakers would float to the surface.

University of Victoria Oceanographer Richard Dewey says sneakers can float “for months, if not years.”

Dewey has developed detailed models of the tides and currents in the Strait of Georgia. Because the way the water sloshes and dilutes in the Strait, Dewey says, the five feet “could have come from anywhere.”

The feet could have come from anywhere inside the Strait of Georgia, even potentially from Bellingham Bay or Boundary Bay in Northwest Washington.