A foot with a leg bone attached was found in Vancouver's False Creek on Aug. 30, 2011. (CTV)
We’ve mentioned this odd phenomenon a few times on PID Radio, so the story may not be new to most of you.
Beginning in 2007, severed feet began appearing on the shores of British Columbia. By 2008, the police there were investigating possible crimes involving 5 severed feet. By 2009, the number rose to 8.
Using DNA techniques, 2 of the 5 feet in police possession were matched as belonging to the same, unidentified man. One single foot belonged to an unknown female. This foot was later matched to an unidentified woman.
Examination of the feet revealed no sign of tool marks, leading investigators to conclude that the feet, and a foot with a leg bone attached, all became ‘naturally disarticulated’.
As mentioned above, the number of human feet washed ashore has now risen to 8. Police are scouring missing persons records to find a match, but so far only one person has been identified, although police have refused to release the man’s name.
Is there a serial killer working southwest British Columbia? If so, then the MO is unusual, including both male and female victims. A former Toronto police detective is asking similar questions, wondering in an interview whether forensic examinations might reveal elusive tool marks:
“Where are all the rest of the body parts?” Mendelson wondered.
He says in his almost 30 years with the Toronto Police Service and in his 15 years in homicide, he’s done lots of investigations of bodies that turned up floating in waterways.
“Body parts do eventually make their way to the surface. So why are we only getting feet? Why are they only in running shoes? I’m not sure I buy the theory that it’s because the shoe floats,” he said.
Mendelson says forensic anthropologists will likely begin this investigation by looking at the break point of the leg, to see if there are striations or cut lines that show whether the leg was cut off with a saw or other implement. (CTV News)
11 feet in 5 years may not sound like a major find, but Detective Mendelson appears to disagree. The bottom line is that you need to be extra careful when you go out for a jog anywhere close to the Vancouver area.
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