Another foot found in Canada!

Right:  This old boot is NOT connected to this case.

Human Foot Found In Sasamat Lake, Canada

British Columbia has been riddled by eight human feet washing ashore in the province and another appendage was found on the shore of Sasamat Lake near Port Moody on Friday, The Vancouver Sun reports.
This is at least the ninth foot discovered in British Columbia since 2007...

Read entire article here: http://www.aol.com/2011/11/09/human-foot-found-in-sasam_n_1086014.html

Also read: Another severed foot found in B.C. waters
and: Two feet that washed ashore in B.C. identified from Seattlepi.com.

This one is a men’s size 12 black Cougar brand hiking boot, found November 7, 2011.  Authorities keep saying there is no sign of foul play.  Yeah?  Please, if my foot is ever detached from my leg, assume there HAS been foul play and work from there. 

Seventh foot washed up as deepens mystery

Published Date: 15 November 2008
By Lorraine Mallinder

POLICE in North America are still scratching their heads over a series of feet that have washed up on western shores over the past year in one of the most bizarre cases they have encountered.

This week's discovery of a seventh foot, shod in a New Balance trainer, in British Columbia, Canada, has prompted a fresh flurry of speculation over how the feet came to find themselves bobbing around in the ocean. Armchair theories include boat and plane crashes, murky underworld dealings, serial killings and even the 2004 tsunami.

Oceanographers are, however, beginning to shed more light on the mystery. Richard Thomson, of the Institute of Ocean Sciences in Sidney, British Columbia, said that the feet probably belonged to local people who had committed suicide. Feet encased in hi-tech, lightweight running shoes, he said, would be the only body parts likely to rise to the surface and return to shore.

The "semi-closed" nature of the Strait of Georgia, the body of water separating Vancouver from the Canadian and United States mainlands, would have prevented the feet from being "flushed out" into the ocean, he said. Chase Stoudt, a researcher at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Washington, US, said that the cases were "definitely local". "We're thinking they (the feet] would have been floating around for a couple of weeks. We don't think they came from the ocean, but the land."

Stoudt has been carrying out research for the Clallam County Sheriff's Department in Washington State since the sixth foot was discovered south of the Canadian border in August. His and Thomson's findings discount the theory that the feet belonged to victims of the tsunami that hit Asian countries in 2004.

The seventh foot was discovered on Tuesday on the shores of the Fraser River in a suburb of Vancouver.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) are still trying to assess whether the foot, encased in a left-footed blue and white New Balance running shoe, could be a match for an earlier discovery. The latter, shod in a right-footed running shoe of the same brand, colour and size, was discovered in May.

The match, if confirmed, would be the second. The first match was between two feet found in February and June, again in British Columbia. Both were shod in blue and white Nike trainers.Of all the feet, only the first, found in August 2007, has been linked conclusively through DNA tests to a body. It belonged to a depressed man who disappeared in the province of British Columbia months earlier.

Constable Annie Linteau of the RCMP said that foul play could not be discounted, although many tests had yet to be concluded. In the meantime, British Columbia police are still trudging through the province's missing person files. According to Ms Linteau, there are more than 2,000 files spanning 20 years.

Ms Linteau said the Canadian police had not reached any conclusions on how long the feet had spent in the water. She said they showed "no signs of having been severed. They were disarticulated through a natural process." Detective Lyman Moores, of the Clallam County Sheriff's Department, said police on both sides of the border were working together. Police were "almost sure" that the sixth foot, found on US shores, came from Canada.

A popular theory linking the feet to passengers killed in a plane crash off Quadra Island, British Columbia, three years ago, gained substantial traction earlier this year, only to be disproved by DNA tests. Canadian jokers have twice confused police investigations with hoax feet left on Vancouver beaches. In June, someone stuffed the bones of an animal's foot in a running shoe. In September, a plastic foot was discovered in a running shoe.

List of feet found in British Columbia and Washington State

1. August 20, 2007, Jedediah Island in the Strait of Georgia, right foot, male, in sock and size 12 running shoe, no tool marks on bones.

2. August 26, 2007, Gabriola Island, near Jedidiah Island, right foot, male, in sock and size 12 Reebok sneaker, no tool marks on bones.

3. February 8, 2008, Valdez Island, east side, right foot, male, in sock and running shoe, no tool marks on bones. This foot is the match to number 5 below.

4. May 22, 2008, Kirkland Island in Fraser River, several kilometers from Westham Island, about one mile from #5, below, right foot, female, in sock and shoe, no tool marks on bones. Only confirmed womens shoe. Blue and White New Balance running shoe. Possibly a match to number 7 below.

5. Monday, June 16, 2008, on shore of Westham Island, Richmond, about 15 miles south of Vancouver, at the mouth of the Fraser River, left foot, male, in shoe, no tool marks . This foot is the match to number 3 above.

X. HOAX Wednesday, June 18, 2008, British Columbia, south coast, Tyee Spit beach.
Animal foot put in shoe. Some dumbass.

6. August 2, 2008, Saturday. Authorities said a woman told the Clallam County sheriff’s office that she found the black, high-top shoe along the beach on the Strait of Juan de Fuca, about 30 miles west of Port Angeles.

X. HOAX Some time in September another fool placed a plastic foot out on a beach.

7. November 11, 2008, Royal Canadian Mounted Police Constable Annie Linteau confirmed that human remains were inside a left, blue and white, New Balance running shoe spotted Tuesday afternoon by Ken Johnston, who fished the shoe out of the Fraser River off Richmond. Possibly a match to number 4 above.

Seventh severed foot found in British Columbia

Another human foot has washed up on British Columbia's south coast, the seventh to be found on the province's beaches since August 2007.

November 12, 2008
By The Associated Press

RICHMOND, B.C. — Another human foot has washed up on British Columbia's south coast, the seventh to be found on the province's beaches since August 2007.

Royal Canadian Mounted Police Constable Annie Linteau confirmed that human remains were inside a New Balance running shoe spotted Tuesday afternoon.

"My first reaction was this was a small size, maybe a woman's shoe," said Ken Johnston, who fished the shoe out of the Fraser River off Richmond after his wife spotted it while walking their dog.

One right-foot New Balance running shoe — the only one belonging to a woman — has been found since the first foot was located on Jedidiah Island in Georgia Strait on Aug. 20, 2007. That shoe turned up May 22 on Kirkland Island in the Fraser River, not far from the site of Tuesday's discovery.

All the other feet were found at several sites on or near Georgia Strait, including remains in a shoe found in August in Washington state's San Juan Islands.

Police have determined that two of the shoes — found Feb. 8 on Valdez Island and June 16 off Richmond — are a match.

DNA testing linked one foot to a depressed man who disappeared in 2007 but the other remains have not been identified.

Authorities say it appears that all of the feet separated naturally from bodies as they decomposed in the water.

First of Canada's 5 mystery feet identified; footless body reported

Jul 19, 2008
By JEREMY HAINSWORTH
Associated Press Writer

VANCOUVER, British Columbia (AP) - One of the five feet that have mysteriously washed up on the shores of British Columbia over the past year has been linked to a depressed man who went missing a year ago, police said Saturday.

Police sergeant Pierre Lemaitre said DNA testing helped to identify the man. The man's name is not being made public at the family's request, said Lemaitre."We're being very sensitive to the family's demands," he said, adding more information will be released on Monday. "They wanted the time to reach out to their immediate family and share the news among themselves."

A team of investigators has been working on the bizarre case since the first foot washed up last August on Jedidiah Island in the Strait of Georgia.

Since last year, detached feet began appearing, floating within a few miles of each other along island shorelines in the Strait of Georgia near Vancouver. The bizarre findings baffled Canadian officials.

So far, investigators have concluded that two of the five feet belonged to one man and that one foot was from a woman.

Lemaitre did not comment on reports that a U.S. coroner in Washington State's San Juan Islands had found a footless body just five months before the first foot washed ashore in British Columbia, except to say that Royal Canadian Mounted Police investigators are looking into the reports.

San Juan Islands coroner Randy Gaylord said he was never contacted by Canadian authorities about a possible connection. Police said they are reviewing almost 300 missing persons files and haven't yet been able to match any other DNA from the feet to any missing people.

British Columbia coroner Jeff Dolan has said there was no evidence the feet were severed. Curtis Ebbesmeyer, an oceanographer based in Seattle, said when a human body is submerged in the ocean, main parts like arms, legs, hands, feet and the head are usually what come off the body. Ebbesmeyer said the feet could have been severed or detached from their bodies on their own. Dr. John Butt, a forensic pathologist based in Vancouver, B.C., speculates the reason the feet were discovered because they were tightly laced in buoyant running shoes, which floated to the surface.

Washington state link to Canada's mystery feet?

Authorities in Canada and Washington state are trying to determine whether a footless body that washed up in the San Juan Islands last year is connected to any of the mystery feet that have been washing ashore in British Columbia in recent months. Gosh, do ya' think?

San Juan County Coroner Randy Gaylord said the footless body was found on an Orcas Island beach by a hiker in March 2007 - about five months before the first detached foot appeared in Canada.

"Well, we didn't know what to think at the time," Gaylord says. "There was nothing to believe it was foul play.

"The body was listed as a cold case until Gaylord got a call a few days from Canadian officials who wanted to know if the body might be connected to one or more of the five mystery feet that have washed ashore since August 2007.

He said the body was badly decomposed, but he could tell it was a man, about 5-feet-10-inches tall with gold teeth. But the strangest thing of all was that the body had no feet.

The spot where the body was found is only about 30 miles from where the nearest foot washed ashore on Valdes Island in B.C. And it's within the geographic area that Canadian officials now say they are investigating for clues to the origin of the feet, which have been floating ashore inside sneakers.

Gaylord says Canadian authorities have never contacted him until now. And he admits he never bothered to tell them he had a footless body - until now.

In fact, the Sheriff's Office report on the body makes no mention of the missing feet. Now that investigators in Canada are aware of the footless body, they have asked for a DNA sample from it. And with DNA samples of the B.C. feet already complete, it shouldn't take long to tell if there's a match.

If so, it would be a major break in the case that has baffled officials for months now.

So far, officials have matched one of the five feet to a known missing person. They have also determined that two of the feet are from the same man, and that one of the feet is from a woman.

A team of investigators has been working on the bizarre case since the first foot washed up last August on Jedidiah Island in the Strait of Georgia.Since last year, detached feet began appearing, floating within a few miles of each other along island shorelines in the Strait of Georgia near Vancouver.

The bizarre findings baffled Canadian officials.

The first foot was found nearly a year ago 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.

The fourth foot was found in May on Kirkland Island in the Fraser River.

The fifth foot was found later on Kirland Island in the Fraser River, less than a mile from the site where the fourth foot was found.

A sixth discovery last month turned out to be a hoax, with an animal paw stuffed inside a shoe.

Shoe Containing Human Foot Found on Washington Beach

PORT ANGELES, Wash. — An athletic shoe containing a human foot was found on a Washington state beach, and authorities are investigating whether it may be linked to a series of human feet found in shoes along the coast of British Columbia.

Undersheriff Ron Peregrin said Monday that the King County medical examiner determined the foot was human and detached from its body naturally after floating in the water.

Peregrin said the foot will be sent for a forensic investigation, including DNA testing to see if it matches feet found washed ashore in British Columbia. Results are expected to take six to eight weeks.

Authorities said a woman told the Clallam County sheriff's office on Saturday that she found the black, high-top shoe along the beach on the Strait of Juan de Fuca, about 30 miles west of Port Angeles.

Five athletic shoes containing human feet have been found along the Strait of Georgia between Vancouver Island and the British Columbia mainland since August 2007. The Strait of Juan de Fuca separates the Canadian island and Washington's Olympic Peninsula.

A sixth foot found in June in British Columbia was determined to be an animal paw that had been shoved inside a shoe as a hoax.

"We're a little apprehensive since the last one was a hoax," said Detective Sgt. Lyman Moores.
DNA testing linked one of the Canadian feet to a depressed man who went missing a year ago. Investigators have also concluded that two of the five feet belonged to one man and that one foot was from a woman.

British Columbia coroner Jeff Dolan has said there was no evidence the feet were severed. Experts say that when a human body is submerged in the ocean, the arms, legs, hands, feet and head usually come off the body.

Foot found in Canada identified as belonging to missing B.C. man

By Noelene Clark
Seattle Times staff reporter

Photos of shoes found on feet that washed up.

One of the five disembodied human feet found over the past year along the shorelines of British Columbia has been matched to a depressed man who went missing a year ago.

Canadian police used DNA testing to link the foot to the man after receiving a tip last week, Sgt. Pierre Lemaitre of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said Saturday. Police are not identifying the Vancouver-area man out of respect for his family, who want time to notify loved ones, Lemaitre said.

"It's not happy news, but it could bring a sense of closure to some extent," Lemaitre said.
Since last August, five feet have washed ashore within a few miles of each other on islands in the Strait of Georgia.

The tip about the missing man came from a family member who saw pictures of the recovered shoes police released earlier this month, Lemaitre said.

"A family member saw one of the shoes and thought, 'Wait a second,' " Lemaitre said.
After relatives provided DNA from the missing man, police were able to match it to one of the feet.

Police do not suspect foul play, said Lemaitre, who confirmed the man had suffered from emotional distress.

Canadian police also were able to inform two families that their missing loved ones were not matches for the feet, Lemaitre said.

The first foot was found in August on Jedidiah Island. Within a week, a second foot surfaced on Gabriola Island. Officials said they were clearly from different people because both were right feet.

In February, a third foot was found on Valdez Island, followed by the fourth on Kirkland Island in May and the fifth on Westham Island in June.

The case even inspired a hoax; a sixth shoe was discovered June 18, stuffed with bones from an animal paw.

Investigators have confirmed that the third and fifth feet found belonged to the same man, and that the fourth foot belonged to a woman.

The mysterious feet have led investigators through more than 300 missing-person files, including one from San Juan County. In March 2007, a hiker on a remote stretch of Orcas Island found a human skeleton missing its right arm, left hand and both feet.

San Juan County coroner Randy Gaylord tried to identify the remains through dental records after discovering gold inlays in the upper molars, but the leads dried up. Last week, the B.C. coroner's office called Gaylord in an attempt to match the detached feet to the footless skeleton.
"We wouldn't be able to link the feet with the remains that we have without some kind of DNA testing," Gaylord said Saturday.

The DNA testing could take several weeks, Gaylord said. His office did not perform DNA tests on the remains initially because the dental work was so distinctive and more likely to produce a match than DNA exams; only certain people's DNA information is in a database.

Gaylord said his primary concern was to identify the remains and notify family. He encourages anyone with information, specifically dental records, about a missing person with gold-inlay teeth to contact the coroner's office at 360-378-4151.

Officials are still investigating eight tips they received after displaying the shoe photographs July 10.

Lemaitre encouraged friends and relatives of missing persons to view photographs of the shoes online to see if they recognize them.

The police need DNA samples from missing people before they can compare it to DNA from the feet.

"Right now, we have DNA on all the discovered feet, but if we don't have something to compare it to, we can't make a match," Lemaitre said. "We encourage them to take the time to look, and you just never know."

2 of 5 washed-up feet belong to same person

July 10, 2008
FROM ASSOCIATED PRESS

VANCOUVER, British Columbia — Two of the five feet that have washed up on the shores of British Columbia over the past year belonged to the same person, but no identities have been determined in any of the cases, police said Thursday.

A spokeswoman said DNA testing determined that a left foot found in June came from the same male as a right foot found in February. She said police are reviewing missing persons files and have eliminated 130 so far.

Authorities have said they have no reason to believe the cases were related or involved wrongdoing, although they aren’t ruling out any possibilities.

‘‘There is no evidence that these feet have been severed. There were no tool marks and no visible signs of trauma,’’ Constable Annie Linteau said at a news conference.

Curtis Ebbesmeyer, an oceanographer, said that when a body decomposes in water, it is not unusual for its parts to separate after prolonged submersion.

The first three feet washed ashore about 40 miles southwest of Vancouver on islands in the Strait of Georgia. The first was discovered last summer by beachcombers. Days later, a foot was found inside a man’s Reebok sneaker. The remains of a third foot were found Feb 8.

The fourth foot was found May 22 on Kirkland Island in the Fraser River, about 15 miles south of Vancouver. The fifth — and the only left food found — washed up about a mile away and was discovered June 16.

A sixth find last month turned out to be a hoax, with an animal paw stuffed inside a shoe.
‘‘Until all of those remains have been identified we are going to explore all possibilities,’’ Linteau said.

Dean Hilderbrand, a forensic scientist working on the case, said officials have not yet contacted Swedish police about a similar foot found near Stockholm two days ago.

Human Feet in found in British Columbia

Linking severed feet to missing persons a challenge, experts say.

1. August 20, 2007, Jedediah Island, right foot, male, in sock and size 12 running shoe, no tool marks on bones.

2. August 26, 2007, Gabriola Island, right foot, male, in sock and size 12 running shoe, no tool marks on bones.

3. February 8, 2008, Valdes Island, east side, right foot, male, in sock and running shoe, no tool marks on bones.

4. May 22, 2008, Kirkland Island in Fraser River, several kilometers from Westham Island, right foot, male, in sock and shoe, no tool marks on bones.

5. Monday, June 16, 2008, left foot, female, on shore of Westham Island, south of Vancouver.,



6. Wednesday, June 18, 2008, British Columbia, south coast, Tyee Spit beach, right foot, male, Adidas black men’s shoe , size 10... PERPETRATED HOAX.



June 19, 2008

CBC News



The disturbing discovery on Monday June 16 of the remains of a left foot in a running shoe in the water near Westham Island in Ladner, B.C., may not seem like much to go on for forensic investigators.

But the remains, one of five feet discovered in the last year and a half in the same region, could potentially contain deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), bone minerals and trace evidence, forensic experts say, while the shoe itself might provide some history on the time and place when a person may have gone missing.

The difficulty, they say, is in turning such evidence into something that can identify an individual and help families looking for information on missing persons.

The problem was exacerbated by the news that a sixth shoe, found near Campbell River, contained a skeletonized animal paw packed with dry seaweed in what the B.C. Coroners Service called "a reprehensible hoax."

The discovery of the hoax highlights the first investigative tool at the disposal of the coroners service: a simple examination of the shoe and bones it contains.

Pathologists and anthropologists can better estimate everything from the height of the person to their age based on that study, B.C. chief coroner Terry Smith said.

But to glean more information, DNA evidence is often required.

The process of raising DNA profiles based on the remains can be a painstaking process, Smith told CBC News, but that's only the beginning of the work.

"The [DNA] profile itself really is nothing more than something which looks like a barcode, and it really means nothing until you have something to compare it to," he said.

"If we know that a given profile belongs to a particular person, then comparing the profile we raised from the found remains then allows us to make a definite match."

Finding that match isn't as easy, he said, because of the vast numbers of missing persons, not all of whom have DNA samples available for comparison.

Dean Hildebrand, head of the forensics program at the British Columbia Institute of Technology, said the process of extracting DNA from a sample such as a human bone can take as little time as a week or two.

The process involves cleaning the sample to eliminate potential contaminants and then isolating a few cells to look for relatively clean DNA strands. These strands are then replicated in a laboratory to create larger samples to work from, so that even a DNA sample that has degraded over time can be turned into something usable for study, he said.

That replication process is particularly important given that the remains in these cases have been found near water, because moisture is — along with temperature — an important cause of genetic degradation.

Exposure to water

Exposure to water is also likely why the feet broke away from the rest of the body, said Lynne Bell, a forensics professor at Simon Fraser University.

Had these feet not been in shoes, the bones of the foot would likely have broken away from the rest of the body in the water, said Bell, who is not involved in the investigation. Human remains recovered in forests can also have a similar separation of shoe-clad foot from the rest of the body, although that process would take much longer, she said.

That the shoes were running shoes also meant they would float, she said, allowing them to travel downstream while the rest of the remains sank.

Bell said DNA is the best source of evidence for investigators attempting to link the remains to a person, because it can positively identify a single individual. However, there are other methods for getting more general information about a person, she said.

The shoes could be a source of potential information, she said, starting with the most basic information — the size and the brand of the footwear. While both could provide a potential match with an individual, the brand, if new enough, could help investigators figure out when the person might have gone missing.

More advanced study, such as examining to see whether pollen from trees and other plants has hitched a ride on the footwear, might provide information on a particular geographical region, she said.

Oxygen isotopes offer clues

Similarly, studying the minerals in the bone itself could provide a geographical marker of where a person might have lived, Bell said. She said the study of oxygen isotopes found in the bone could place a person at a certain latitude, as the oxygen value of drinking water changes depending on the location's distance from the equator.

"That would help narrow a missing person search, but it won't give you an address," she said.
As investigators work on the case, online comment boards have offered possible explanations on how the discovered remains may be linked.

Bell said investigators will likely call on water current experts to see whether the locations of the discoveries are linked, but she said she suspects the unusual appearance of five different feet in the same region over a short span of time makes it "highly plausible" they are.

"It could either be a known incident, such as a plane or boat crash, or it could be something we don't know about, such as a criminal incident," she said.

Bell said she feels confident investigators will eventually be able to solve the mystery, linking the remains with each other, but she said the greater challenge remains identifying whom the feet belong to.

"It's incredibly challenging from the forensic point of view, because even if we find the DNA, we don't know who these people are and why their remains are being recovered from the water," she said.