Vancouver Island: Human foot washes ashore on BC beach (Video)

A human foot discovered on a Vancouver Island beach over the weekend appears to have detached naturally from the body, according to the BC Coroners Service.

Charlotte Stephens made the grim discovery at Botanical Beach, not far from Port Renfrew, on Sunday afternoon.

“[My husband] was up on the driftwood and he happened to find the shoe. He picked it and brought it out on to the beach and we had a look at it for about five minutes and we thought it almost looks like there is an actual foot bone in it,” she told the outlet.

The shoe appeared to have washed ashore, Sooke RCMP said in a news release Tuesday.

The coroners service will spearhead the investigation, working with the RCMP’s Missing Person Unit to identify who the foot belongs to through DNA testing.

On Wednesday, the authority said the shoe was sold in March 2013, which means its owner died sometime between that month and December 2015.

Between August 2007 and November 2012, nine feet belonging to seven individuals were discovered on B.C.’s coast. At least three others washed up in Washington.

• The first foot was found on Aug. 20, 2007, on Jedediah Island, northeast of Nanaimo. The right, male foot was found in a Campus shoe, size 12, available for sale primarily in India. It was subsequently linked to a depressed man who went missing in early 2007.

• Aug. 26, 2007, on Gabriola Island. It was a right, male foot in a size 12 Reebok shoe. The brand was first produced in 2004 and is no longer for sale.

• Feb. 8, 2008, on Valdes Island. A foot, right and belonging to a male, was found in a blue and white Nike, size 11. The model was made between February and June 2003.

• May 22, 2008, on Kirkland Island at the mouth of the Fraser River. This time, it was a right female foot in a size 7 New Balance shoe. The model was made beginning in June 1999.

• June 16, 2008, on Westham Island at the mouth of the Fraser River. It was a left, male foot and DNA testing has matched it with the foot found on Valdes, but the man’s identity is unknown.

• Aug. 1, 2008, near Pysht, west of Port Angeles, Washington. A right, male foot, it was found in a size 11 or 12 men’s low-rise, dark hiking-type athletic shoe, made by the Everest Shoe Co.

• Nov. 11, 2008, on a Fraser River beach in Richmond. A left, female foot, it was matched through DNA testing with the foot found on Kirkland Island, and the woman was identified.

• Oct. 29, 2009, inside a white size 8 1/2 Nike running shoe on a beach in Richmond.

• Aug. 26, 2010, by a tourist on Whidbey Island, in Puget Sound. The right foot was believed to belong to a woman or child.

• Sept. 30, 2011, in False Creek, an inlet in downtown Vancouver. Human foot and leg bones found in a shoe.

• May 6, 2014, on a beach in Seattle. A human foot was inside a white New Balance running shoe.

In the previous cases, foul play was not suspected and police said the feet likely became detached through decomposition.

There have also been hoaxes.

On June 18, 2008, what was thought to be a foot washed up near Campbell River. It was later discovered that someone had placed the bones of an animal’s foot in a sock and packed it inside a sneaker with seaweed.

Then in September of that year, someone placed a plastic foot in a runner on an East Vancouver beach.

In September 2012, Victoria police investigated after five child-sized shoes were found at the Clover Point beach area. Three of the shoes were stuffed with with flesh and bones meant to look like human remains, but tests revealed that they were not human.

Agencies/Canadajournal