The BC Coroners Service has used DNA analysis to identify two feet that washed ashore on two separate B.C. islands in 2008.
The feet, clad in a matching pair of size 11 Nike running shoes, floated ashore on Feb. 8 and June 16, 2008, on Valdes Island, just off of Vancouver Island and Westham Island near Ladner.
The service says the feet belong to a 21-year-old Surrey man who was reported missing in January 2004.
The coroner sifted through missing persons' reports from the RCMP and municipal police departments in order to identify the remains.
Each report was compared to the entire catalogue of human remains the coroner's service has, not just the feet, Stephen Fonseca, BC Coroner Service Identification & Disaster Response Unit manager, told ctvbc.ca.
When they found sufficient evidence, based on timelines and geography of the missing person case, the office conducted DNA analysis of the feet.
Autopsies ruled out foul play and coroners determined the feet had been separated from the rest of the body through natural marine processes.
Seven feet – belonging to five different individuals – washed up on B.C. Shores between August 2007 and October 2009.
Fonseca says foul play has been ruled out in all of the identified cases. It is strongly suspected that owners of the unidentified feet also did not meet foul ends.
"It's important for the community to know that these people were not murdered," Fonseca said.
The coroner's office has confirmed the identity of three individuals that four of the feet belonged to, including the Surrey man.
They are still working to determine the identity of the other feet though they know that they come from one man and one woman.
Fonseca isn't sure why so many detached feet washed up in such a short time period, but he has a theory. He suspects that intense media coverage of the string of mystery feet led to heightened public curiosity.
"People were literally looking in every shoe they could find on the beach," he said.
In light of that, he wanted to remind the public that the feet themselves are not that strange, though it's odd to have found so many.
"It's not totally unusual for us to find incomplete bodies," he said. "We get scattered human remains in wooded areas; the same applies in waterways and oceans."
