Back in February shoe with a severed foot in it made its way onto a Pacific Northwest shore — making it the 16th since 2007.
Along British Columbia, Canada, and Washington state, feet in athletic shoes or boots have been discovered on their shores. Last week the shoe was found in British Columbia by a family who picked it up and noticed that there were human bones in it. Based on the model of shoe, the foot belonged to someone who went missing between March 2013 and last week, according to The Washington Post.
And if the past is any indication, this foot will lead to more questions than answers. Since 2007, many aspects are still a mystery: who most of these feet belong to, how long they were in the ocean, and where the other foot is. The 2004 tsunami, drug cartels, serial killers, and a Quadra Island plane crash have been speculated as the culprit of this conundrum.
Most of the time a right foot washes up. However, in summer 2007 two right feet were unearthed days apart from one another in British Columbia, which especially piqued authorities’ interest.
However, British Columbia investigators have identified the owners of five of the feet — and possibly their cause of death. Three are believed to have died of natural causes and two were people who battled mental illness. Whether they or the others are the result of foul play, it is known that bodies exposed to the water commonly lose their hands and feet first.
Despite this, it still begs the question of why there are so many since 2007. There is no clear answer.
