Human foot washes up on Seattle beach similar to cases on BC shore

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SEATTLE (NEWS1130) – Volunteers cleaning up the shore of Seattle’s Centennial Park made a gruesome discovery Tuesday morning when they found a tennis shoe containing a human foot. The case is reminding many of a dozen or so similar feet that washed up on local beaches.

Barb McLintock with the BC Coroners Service says it’s too early to determine whether the foot is related to any feet found in Metro Vancouver, on Vancouver Island and in Washington State between 2007 and 2013.

“Could we guaranteed that it is not at this point? No. But we don’t know anything about this, it was in Seattle. If they think they need to, they’ll make contact with our identification and disaster response unit.” McLintock adds the area is quite far from where other feet washed up. “I suspect that the chances aren’t high [this matches any of the previous feet], but this will be up to the American authorities to start. If they think there could be any linkage they in due course could contact our service.”

Almost all the feet found in our province have been identified according to McLintock, who says they tend to naturally disarticulate from the remains in the water and shoes float to the surface. Many of the runners found were light, or had air pockets, making them more prone to floating to the surface. She adds none of the feet four in our province came from suspicious deaths, nor were they severed.

But Peter McGraw with the Port of Seattle says feet washing up is not common for this area of Seattle near Pier 86. “Our police were called and we had turned the foot over to the medical examiner. They will be investigating it further to see if they can find the identity of the person.” He adds people at the port remembered BC’s cases, and were wondering if this was some how related as well.

There was a flurry of feet washing up on West Coast shores in previous years according to McLintock, but she says the numbers have decreased recently with few showing up over the past couple of years.

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