Seriously though, WTF?
Another human foot encased in a running shoe has been found on the shores of British Columbia in Canada, the second this week and the sixth within a year.
Like four of the others it was a right foot, a police official said.
The foot was found near Campbell River on Vancouver Island and appeared to have been severed, a witness said.
Police, who are not speculating on this, are trying to determine the origins of the feet and whether they are any links between the discoveries.
Wow, more like British Colombia, right? Right?
Anyway, could it all be a bizarre podiatric coincidence?
"In the first four cases, police have no evidence that the feet were severed. It is too early to say if this foot was severed," police spokeswoman Annie Linteau said.
On Monday, a left foot was found on another island off Vancouver.
Like the previous four, it is believed to have become detached at the ankle, in a process called disarticulation.
Forensic experts say it is not unusual for body parts to become separated after they have been in the water for a long time.
[...]
Investigators are looking at the cases individually but are also trying to establish if there any links.Forensics experts are taking DNA samples and police are also trying track down the manufacturers of the shoes and then the shops where they were sold.
But with so little concrete information, theories abound.
Organised crime, boating accidents - even the 2004 Asian tsunami - are all being offered as possible explanations.
This was no boating accident.
We'll look over the misspelling of "organized" for the moment and try to concentrate on who could possibly behind such gruesomeness? Canadian mobsters? Angry moviegoers clamoring for a sequel to My Left Foot?
But wait, this just in:
What appeared to be the sixth human foot to wash up on British Columbia's shore since last August is actually an animal's paw and seaweed stuffed into a sock, the provincial coroner's office said. Five feet had previously been discovered, all in running shoes, and investigators have not been able to identify any of them. But an examination by a forensic pathologist and an anthropologist concluded that the latest discovery was a hoax, the coroner's office said.
That's a relief. I mean, five was weird and all, but six would just be...crazy.
I wondered why I was limping. Damn. I liked those running shoes too.
I live in BC and we’ve been “collecting” these feet for a while now (2-3 years).
Apparently, the plastic shoe acts like a Ziploc baggy—seals in the “freshness”, so to speak. After severals days/weeks floating in the ocean, it’s about the only thing remaining of the body. How the body got into the ocean is another question. The ocean currents that run down the BC coast carry crap from all over the Pacific, so a foot’s “departure” may be from anywhere in the Pacific Rim.
My guess is:
- inexperienced Filipino ship mates falling overboard (i.e. accidental and not reported due to illegal nature of employment); or
- drug runner sending “special message” to informers.
I’m leaning towards the second guess because: they only seem to find these feet in BC, not anywhere else in the Pacific (we can’t be the *only* backwater); and they are always *right* feet. Probability theory would suggest that five (5!!) of one kind and none (zero—the left one was fake) of the other would be something other than *just* random selection.
BC, and especially Vancouver, is the fraud capital of Canada. “BC Bud” (marijuana) is famous the world over and estimated to be BC’s second largest export (greater than forestry’s $8B/year). Five right feet over the past few years. Sounds like Mafia to me.
Six foot, seven foot, eight foot — BUNCH!