B.C. Coroners are looking into whether a body with no feet found on a beach in Washington state is connected to the mystery of the severed feet that have washed ashore on the west coast.
And officials in Washington State say they wouldn't have made the connection to the mystery were it not for the investigative work of CTV News.
No one knows just who the body belongs to -- save that it is a man, about five feet, ten inches tall, with gold dental work -- said San Juan County Coroner Raymond Gaylord.
"The feet were missing. We had the femurs, we had the lower limbs, but there were no feet," said Gaylord.
The remains were discovered by a hiker on the eastern tip of Orcas Island, near Point Lawrence, in March, 2007.
It was badly decomposed, with its left arm missing, its lower jaw missing, and only the skin of the back still attached.
Police officers retrieved the body on the police boat, and when it was laid out in the medical examiner's office, officials could see that there were no feet.
But this was five months before any feet started to wash ashore in B.C., said Gaylord.
At the time, no one thought the detail of the missing feet was significant, writing in the police report only that the body was a 'partial skeleton.'
"We were trying to match the dental records," said Gaylord.
One shoe was found a short distance from the skeleton -- a black Merrell hiking shoe, but investigators aren't sure if that shoe is related to the body.
Gaylord said he had heard the story of the missing feet, but didn't think to make the connection until he received a phone call from CTV News.
"It was your call that prompted me to make the link," he said.
That was on Wednesday -- and on Thursday afternoon, he told Karen Collins of the B.C. Coroners' Service about the find.
With DNA profiles of the missing feet completed, Gaylord says it's only a matter of time before a DNA profile of the skeleton can be extracted, and compared to see if the two is a match.
It's not outlandish that the case of the skeleton and the case of the missing feet could be connected, as bodies travel long distances in the water, said Gaylord.
"Our islands and the islands in Canada are in the same body of water -- the only border is political," he said.
On July 10, investigators released images of all the shoes found with the detached feet, and said they were looking through dozens of missing person files to check for links.
The first foot was found on Jedidiah Island, in the strait that divides Vancouver Island from the mainland. It was a right foot inside a Campus-brand men's size 12 running shoe that was mainly distributed in India.
Six days later, another right foot -- inside a man's size 12 Reebok running shoe -- washed ashore on Gabriola Island.
A third -- a right foot in a Nike sneaker -- was found in the area on Feb. 8 on the east side of Valdez Island.
The fourth and fifth feet were both found near the Fraser River. The fourth came ashore on Kirkland Island on May 22 and was the only one of the five that came from a woman's body. It was found in a New Balance running shoe.
The fifth, a size 10 left foot, was located a kilometre away on June 16. It was later determined to be a match to the foot found months earlier on Valdez Island.
B.C. Coroners Service spokesman Jeff Dolan said despite the year-long delay between the discovery of the body on Orcas Island and bringing it into the case, communication between different police forces was still effective.
With a report from CTV British Columbia's Jon Woodward
