More severed feet in British Columbia

Earlier this year, I posted that the third severed foot in six months had turned up on a beach in British Columbia. A fourth was found last week. All of them have been right feet inside size 12 sneakers. From the Canadian Press:

Police say DNA testing is being done on the latest foot, and DNA profiles have been conducted on the others.

Curtis Ebbesmeyer, an oceanographer based in Seattle, Wash., said when a human body submerged in the ocean, the main parts like arms, legs, hands, feet and the head are usually what come off the body.

But he's still baffled by how the exact same part -- a right foot -- could wash up repeatedly.

"It's not unusual for body parts to wash up along the United States or Canada," he said. "There's so many accidents, like boating. That's not unusual. It is unusual to find four bodies over the course of the year and just right feet."

Link (via Fortean Times)

Previously on BB:
• Severed feet washed up in Canada Link

David Pescovitz is Boing Boing's co-editor/managing partner. He's also a research director at Institute for the Future. On Instagram, he's @pesco.

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The Snowden Principle

Tenn

Thanks for destroying my ever-grander speculations, Jazminecat. Really.

I hope a fifth foot floats up just to spite you and those so called investigators.
Bonnie

I guess that means that our serial killer has two left feet — and more!
Takuan

four right feet, four locations. No. The sea is stranger than you believe but humans are stranger still.
The Unusual Suspect

Now, let’s not be defeetist about this.
saira

Yikes! This sounds like something out of Agatha Christie or Elizabeth Peters… she had a killer who mangled his victims crocodile-style in Guardian of the Horizon (ebooks version). Scary stuff!
mrfitz

The hard part about being a ninja is that you often have to assassinate pirates at sea. Often ninjas are caught on board. Typically, the right foot is hacked off and the fail-ninja is made to “hop” the plank.
aixwiz

Perhaps only right feet being found in British Columbia is due to the Coriolis Effect. Maybe the left feet end up on a beach in Africa?
coastal

I dont know if someone’s already said this, way too close to the end of the week to read all those comments.

I live on one of the Island’s where the foot was found, and have a theory: People dumping bodies into the ocean and attaching bricks to hold them down – eventually the rope (I would imagine) will cut through the foot and set it free? Maybe?

Who knows. Just another theory.
WeightedCompanionCube

Something nefarious is afoot.
pauldrye

So it’s four feet high and risin’? Come on, Johnny Cash needs you to find one more!
keitmo

Update: Further DNA analysis has revealed that the 4 right feet are not all from the same person.
Cazart

“Today’s UK surf report:

It’s one foot out, and it stinks.”

Brilliant. (Except now it’s five feet! w00t!)
jeffbell

Perhaps these are the by products of organ trade. Kidneys and Corneas get top dollar, and even Christy Brown needs left feet, but the right foot is not commercially viable and gets thrown over the rail.

Alternatively, it’s the collective revenge of the soup-fin shark.
Dead Robot

All they need to do is find four people walking in circles.

I should be a cop!
TEKNA2007

I would expect a kinder euphemism from you Takuan

“Intraspecies predator”? Obeying a macabre Right-Hand Rule?
Santa’s Knee

I wonder if they were all in Chuck Taylor Hightops…

Sharks show mad-props for Chucks…
Takuan

I heard a little whisper that the latest showed signs of intentional force – trying to track it down
RJ

I like Jazminecat’s perspective. Of course, you can’t rule out the possibility of a serial killer, but it seems more likely that these feet would be the remains of accident victims.

This message brought to you by the Council of Covert Cannibals Local #592.
Takuan

might I also point out that there is substantial organized crime activity in that part of the world – another benefit of the Waronsomedrugs Industry.
neurolux

My first thought was the “Great Shoe Spill of 1990″. There was a shipment of Nikes that went overboard (the Hansa Carrier). The left shoes went to one beach and the right shoes went to another beach hundreds of miles away.
Anonymous

2 severed feet in tennis shoes were found in Lake Travis near Austin Texas in the last 3 months or so.
ESQ

Today’s UK surf report:

It’s one foot out, and it stinks.
Simon Greenwood

So what happens when it’s found that they all belong to the same person?
Bugs

Maybe it’s just a washed up school of sole?

@ Registrado:
I’m still laughing at that ten minutes later. Awesome.
loumessing

This sounds similar to blue bottle ‘jellyfish’. They have left and right oriented varieties that allow for the colony to float in different directions in tune with the wind and currents. This happens so the entire species isn’t blown onto the same beach.

Somewhere else there may be a right-footed beach?

http://www.marine-medic.com.au/pages/biology/biologyBreakup/physalia.pdf
Anonymous

Wired Science had an episode about tracking floating detritus in the ocean. A shipment of shoes was lost, and the left shoes and right shoes are washing ashore in different places due to the shape of the shoes themselves. The video may be viewed at: http://www.pbs.org/kcet/wiredscience/video/index-129.html
Beryllium

#11: Exactly what I was thinking when the original two feet were discovered.

Some sort of grisly advertising campaign for Dexter Season 2 (at the time), and now perhaps Season 3? :)

It’s extra-funny because (minor Dexter spoils) in Season 2 he starts dumping the body parts into one of those gigantic ocean currents, unlike the prior season where he dumped them in a fixed location on the ocean floor.
maxximoo

my tattoo doesn’t look so silly NOW, does it?
http://modblog.bmezine.com/2007/05/25/maxxs-foot/
max

hahahaha, maximoo you’re a morbid genius!
spazzm

Simon:
Someone’s running an offshore cloning operation?
Maurik

Sounds like a job for Charlie Eppes.
Agent 86

They’ve found the location of the bodies, give or take four feet.
Registrado

Some people are way too dedicated when dancing the Hokey Pokey.
seth matthew

Size 12 US? But these boots were made for walkin’. :/
Takuan

that’s a left foot
Frank_in_Virginia

Ask the TSA to identify the shoes. They make everyone take them off at the airport.
noen

Well, everyone knows you want to start on the right foot.
Tenn

Takuan, do you have a distaste for right feet or something? There are starving beings in the Baltic! Finish your dinner!
ROSSINDETROIT

@43
OW!
OW!OW!
Thank you sir. May I have another?
Takuan

no, no,I haven’t the right
ROSSINDETROIT

OW!Shit!OW!
EddieR

“All of them have been right feet inside size 12 sneakers”

I believe only 2 of the feet were found with size 12 shoes, not all 4. This in no way mitigates the freakiness of this phenomenon. Just sayin’s all.
ROSSINDETROIT

OW!Shit!OW!
Takuan

serial killer
a love supreme

I heard something once about how the arch of one’s foot can get caught in ocean tides and cause them to be pulled in the complete opposite direction of their mates, causing the feet of the same person to end up on completely different shores. I don’t know how true that is if it’s true at all, and it certainly doesn’t explain why they’re all the same size…
Tenn

I would expect a kinder euphemism from you Takuan
jazminecat

There was a plane crash that had four people on board. http://preview.tinyurl.com/527onr

It’s not out of the realm of possibility that these are from that. why just the feet? shoes float. people decompose in water. joints come apart easily.
dr.psilo

Dexter?