Cold Feet
(Winston Ross, Newsweek.com, June 24, 2008)
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."
Some scientists maintain that five feet could well wash ashore in the span of 10 months in the normal course of events. "I think it's a coincidence, absolutely. There's a multitude of sources in this oceanic environment region," says Richard Thomson, a physical oceanographer with the federal Institute of Ocean Sciences on Vancouver Island. "There's not a mystery to be solved." Thomson also offers a straightforward explanation for why all the feet are from the same side of the body, suggesting that right feet may be more firmly lodged in their shoes: "Since we're mostly right-handed, we tie up sneakers stronger on the right foot; the foot we kick with, push off with."
The Mounties, meanwhile, are exploring all possibilities-and remain cautious about offering ideas about a possible link between the finds. They've asked the public to be patient while forensic scientists extract DNA from the limbs and anthropologists look for clues in what flesh and bone remains. "It's a mystery," says Linteau, of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. "We've certainly heard lots of theories -- from [sources interviewed in] the media, mostly."
Now authorities must begin the painstaking work of combing through missing persons reports to look for victims who might have disappeared at a time that would be consistent with the age of the found parts. In 2000, Linteau says, the police undertook a review of all missing persons cases in the country to acquire DNA where available. Investigators will also look for male victims, two with a sneaker size of 12 and one size 10. One of the bigger running shoes was a Reebok; the smaller one was an Adidas. Police haven't released information about the other shoes yet, but they did disclose that there are no tool markings on any of the feet, which means the parts probably came loose of their own accord. Carleton University biologist George Carmody says that scientists should be able to use DNA to determine whether the owners of the feet were biologically related, in addition to figuring out what race, age and gender their owners were.
But the police know that solving this riddle may take months. "It's extremely unique," says Constable Sharlene Brooks of the Delta Police Department in British Columbia, which has jurisdiction over the fifth foot but is working with investigators from other agencies for clues. "But just because there's a recovery of another foot doesn't mean they're automatically linked to the others. We can't get ahead of ourselves and start speculating. We need to establish identity; that way we can work our way back and determine what the circumstances are for this person's death, whether it's foul play or an accident or myriad other possibilities...we're running into the 'CSI' factor, where people expect us to be done in an hour or a day or two. But this could take quite some time."
