Ninth human foot washes ashore in the Pacific Northwest
A human foot washed up on a Washington State island Friday morning, raising the tally of feet found on beaches in the Pacific Northwest since 2007 to a total of nine.
VANCOUVER — A human foot washed up on a Washington State island Friday morning, raising the tally of feet found on beaches in the Pacific Northwest since 2007 to a total of nine.
A tourist found the foot while walking along a beach on the east side of Whidbey Island around 11:15 a.m., said Island County Detective Ed Wallace.
“It's a right foot,” Wallace said. “Based on the size, it's either a female or a juvenile.”
Based on the decomposition of the foot, officials estimated it has been in the water for less than two months. There are no missing persons cases in the county that match the foot, Wallace said. They will reach out to surrounding areas to try to match the foot with a missing persons case, he added.
The foot was not wearing a sock or a shoe, he added.
“It was just a foot.”
A forensic pathologist has been called in to do a DNA test on the foot, he said. The race or the age of the person the foot belonged to has yet to be determined.
“We're at the very beginning stages of this right now,” he said.
This is the first foot to wash up on Whidbey Island.
“We've had complete bodies wash up before, but this is the first time we've had just a foot,” Wallace said.
This is the ninth severed human foot found on the B.C.-Washington coast since 2007.
All of the others were in running shoes.
The last one was a right foot found inside a Nike running shoe on a beach in Richmond in October 2009.
The first severed foot, discovered in August 2007, was associated with a deceased man whose name police withheld at the request of his family. A man's right foot found on Gabriola Island in August 2007 remains unidentified. Two feet found on Valdez and Westham islands in July 2008 belonged to the same man. And two female feet found in Richmond in December 2008 belonged to the same woman.
The RCMP have said the feet in B.C. separated from the body through a natural process.
Timeline of found feet. All but two of the feet were found in British Columbia:
• The first foot was found on Aug. 20, 2007, on Jedediah Island, northeast of Nanaimo. The right, male foot was in a Campus shoe, size 12, that is available for sale primarily in India. It was linked to a depressed man who went missing in early 2007.
• The second foot was found on Aug. 26, 2007, on Gabriola Island. The right, male foot was in a Reebok, size 12. The brand was first produced in 2004 and is no longer for sale.
• The third foot was found on Feb. 8, 2008 on Valdes Island. The right, male foot was in a blue and white Nike, size 11. The model was made between February and June 2003.
• The fourth foot was found on May 22, 2008, on Kirkland Island at the mouth of the Fraser River. The right, female foot was in a size 7 New Balance shoe. The model was made beginning in June 1999.
• The fifth foot was found on June 16, 2008, on Westham Island at the mouth of the Fraser River. The left, male foot had DNA matched with the third foot found on Valdes, but the man’s identity is unknown.
• The sixth foot was found Aug. 1, 2008, near Pysht west of Port Angeles, Wash. The right, male foot was in a men's low-rise, dark hiking-type athletic shoe, made by the Everest Shoe Co., size 11 or 12.
• The seventh foot was found Nov. 11, 2008, on a Fraser River beach in Richmond. The left, female foot had DNA matched with the fourth foot, found on Kirkland Island, and the woman was identified.
• The eighth foot was found in Richmond on Oct. 27, 2009. It was a man's right foot.
• The ninth foot was found Aug. 27, 2010, on Whidby Island in Washington State. The right, bare foot likely belongs to a woman or child, officials said. (What if it is the young boy's foot that is missing from the Portland area?)
Vancouver Sun and Victoria Times Colonist
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I have a question: Have feet washed up on other shores, such as Japan, the Atlantic coast, the Canary Islands, England, etc? This is a real mystery about why is it on the Pacific Northwest coast only?
Aileen
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