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To get this episode of Forensic Tales ad-free, check us out at patreon.com slash Forensic Tales. Forensic Tales discusses topics that some listeners may find disturbing. The contents of this episode may not be suitable for everyone. Listener discretion is advised. Jedediah Island is a peaceful, remote treasure of British Columbia. Families come to relax and escape the troubles of everyday life.
On August 20th, 2007, a young 12-year-old girl plays at the beach. She spots something strange in the water. The classic blue horizon is broken with a single white sneaker hopelessly floating in the calm waters. The young girl rushes to retrieve the lost sneaker. She picks up the shoe, stops, and screams. It's a human foot.
This is Forensic Tales, episode number 88, The British Columbia Floating Feet. ♪
Thank you.
Welcome to Forensic Tales. I'm your host, Courtney Fratwell. Forensic Tales is a weekly true crime podcast covering real, spine-tingling stories with a forensic science twist. Some cases have been solved with forensic science, while others have turned cold. Every remarkable story sends us a chilling reminder that not all stories have happy endings.
If you're interested in supporting my show, getting early access to weekly episodes, bonus material, ad-free episodes, merchandise, and much more, consider visiting our Patreon page at patreon.com forward slash Forensic Tales. Another great way you can help support Forensic Tales is by leaving us a positive rating with a review or
or telling friends and family who love true crime about us. Now, let's jump right into this week's case. On August 20th, 2007, a 12-year-old girl spotted a single white and blue men's running shoe floating on a beach in Jedidala Island, British Columbia. Jedidala Island is a 600-acre island that is only accessible by boat.
Now, originally, Jedidah Island was purchased by the Palmer family in 1949, but was ultimately transformed into a British Columbia park that everyone gets to enjoy. The 12-year-old girl was visiting Jedidah Island with her family from Washington.
While playing on the ocean's beach, the girls spotted a men's size 12 Adidas running shoe, which was odd considering the beach was entirely clean, so the shoe stood out like a sore thumb. It was also strange that it was only one shoe, missing its pair.
The girl approaches the washed-up shoe and notices that there is a pair of socks still inside. But when she pulls out the pair of socks, she sees something else inside of the running shoe. It's a human foot. Six days later, on August 26, 2007, the ocean washed up a second human foot on the shore. A couple from Vancouver was enjoying a walk along Gabriola Island when they stumbled upon something that caught their attention—
While walking together hand in hand along the beach, they stumbled upon a black and white men's Reebok running shoe. Strange, but much like the discovery on Jedidala Island six days earlier, the couple thought it was weird that they only came across a single shoe.
As the couple approached the shoe, they saw a pair of socks inside a familiar sight. So they looked inside and discovered another human foot. This one was badly decomposed. Authorities in British Columbia were alerted that beachgoers found two decomposing human feet within six days of each other.
Both cases had shocking similarities. Both were size 12 shoes, male feet. Both of the feet were in advanced stages of decomposition. Both were male athletic running shoes and both of them were right feet.
Everything else about the two cases were identical, except the shoes were from different brands. One was a Reebok and the other one was an Adidas. And because they were both right feet, the two feet clearly didn't belong to the same person, which means there were at least two victims.
After examining the second shoe, authorities learned that the size 12 white Reebok had been in productions since 2004, so just about three years. And they also knew that trying to track down where the retail store that sold the Reebok would be almost impossible. This pair of shoes was sold all across North America and was just recently discontinued.
The British Columbia police were stunned. They couldn't figure out how two different men, right feet, could wash up on a shore within a week of one another. In addition, because the feet had been in the water for quite some time, they had absolutely no idea how they would try to identify them. Little did the authorities know that this was just the beginning.
Over the next 12 months, five more feet appeared along Canadian beaches. On February 8, 2008, six months after discovering the first foot, another foot washed ashore on Valdez Island. Beachgoers found a size 11 Nike's Men Athletic Shoe containing a right foot on the beach. Two months later, on May 22, 2008, another foot popped up.
This time, however, the foot belonged to a female. A woman's right foot was discovered in a blue and white New Balance sneaker on an island in Fraser Delta, a location right between Richmond and Delta, British Columbia. Like the earlier discoveries, the female foot was also badly decomposed and still in the sock inside of the shoe.
Authorities learned that the New Balance sneaker that woman was wearing was manufactured back in 1999 and had been sold across North America. Again, a highly common and widely manufactured athletic shoe. But obviously with this case, the biggest thing that stood out to investigators was that this was the first case involving a female foot instead of a male foot.
This fourth discovery started to put the people of British Columbia on edge. Nobody knew where these feet were coming from. Nobody knew what happened to these people. Was there some sort of serial killer on the loose?
Was their signature cutting off people's feet and throwing them in the ocean? Nobody knew. All people knew was that both male and female feet were popping up right and left all across British Columbia beaches. And they had no way of knowing how many more were going to pop up. Now, the following month, this is now June 22nd, 2008, another foot washed up.
This time, two hikers discovered a man's left foot on West Helm Island. This discovery would bring the count to five feet. And at this point, the story was starting to get international attention. This story was no longer a case just talked about in Canada.
By the discovery of the fifth foot, it was becoming a national headline news story. Newspapers in South Africa were reporting on the story. The United States was talking about it.
Even David Letterman on his late night talk show brought up the story. In the episode with David Letterman, he brought two Canadian audience members up on stage and started asking them what they thought was happening in British Columbia with all of these single pair of feet washing up on their beaches.
Now, it's not at all surprising that a story like this captured international media attention. Before this, nobody had ever heard about five feet washing up on Canadian beaches or any beach around the world for that matter. And it was just so strange that every case was so similar to one another.
They all involved an athletic shoe. Only one foot was discovered. And of course, there was the fact that the foot was dismembered from the rest of the body. I don't think you could write a fictional novel as strange as what was happening. But even after the media got wind of the story, single feet kept popping up that just continued the media sensation.
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This time the foot was discovered very close to the international border in the Strait of Juan Fuca, a spot that lies between the U.S. and Canadian border. It was a man's black size 11 shoe. This was the first discovery outside of British Columbia. But because it was found only about a month after the fifth foot, authorities suspected that this case was linked to the earlier discoveries.
Couple of months later, on November 11th, a woman's left foot was found floating in the Fraser River in Richmond, British Columbia. In case you're wondering, the foot, of course, was found inside of an athletic shoe.
Over the next 12 years, from 2007 up until 2019, a total of at least 20 detached human feet have washed up ashore around Vancouver, and some have washed up in the U.S. cities of Tacoma and Seattle, Washington.
After November 11, 2008, a size 8 1⁄2 men's right foot showed up in Richmond, British Columbia on October 27, 2009. Next, on August 27, 2010, a woman's or child's right foot popped up on an island near Washington with no sock and no shoe.
A couple of months later, on December 5th, 2010, a right foot belonging to a small boy floated ashore in Tacoma, Washington. Then, between January 26th, 2010 and January 1st, 2019, eight more feet have been discovered, seven in British Columbia, and one appeared on Jetty Island and Everett, Washington.
The discoveries not only led to an international media sensation, but it was enough of a crazy story to create their own Wikipedia page titled The Salish Sea Human Feet Discoveries. But with the media attention came hoaxes and came pranks.
After the word spread about the feat, people started stuffing men's and women's athletic shoes with chicken or animal bones and intentionally setting them out to sea. There was even instances in which dog bones were found stuffed inside of shoes in an apparent prank to replicate what was really happening. As the authorities worked to find out what was causing so many detached feet to wash up on Canadian beaches,
The police were receiving hundreds, if not thousands, of tips in the case. The police received tips that a serial killer was on the loose. And after this serial killer killed their victims, their signature was to cut off one of their feet and drop it into the ocean.
Now, this tip seemed to gain some traction throughout British Columbia, especially early on. That's because nobody could explain or answer why so many feet were popping up in such close physical proximity to one another. The only explanation, or at least the only logical explanation at the time, seemed to be that a serial killer was somehow involved, a serial killer with a possible foot fetish.
Other tips came in that there was an allegedly a container full of Canadian migrants sitting at the bottom of the ocean. And as the water got into this container, the feet of these migrants were making their way to the surface of the water.
Another theory suggested that this was the work of aliens. I know, a little far-fetched. But the idea was that aliens from somewhere in outer space were mysteriously sending detached human feet into our oceans.
Now, I don't know if they were doing this to send some sort of message to us humans or what, but believe it or not, there were enough people out there who thought that aliens were responsible that even the British Columbia police became aware of this theory. Throughout the investigation, the police received countless phone calls from psychics all over the world saying,
Each psychic would call into the police claiming to know where the feet were coming from and what happened to the victims. Occasionally, if the tip seemed at least somewhat legit, the police would follow up on it. But over the months and years, nothing solid came from any of what the psychics had claimed that they had inside knowledge.
Over the years, the police have slowly ruled the case of the British Columbia floating feet as more of a forensic science investigation rather than a criminal investigation.
That's because over the years, authorities have ruled out many of the possible theories that we touched on, including an active serial killer, aliens from outer space, as well as that underwater container holding Canadian migrants. I hate to break it to anyone listening, but none of the above are responsible for the floating feet.
So since the initial discovery in August of 2007, many of the feet that I've washed ashore have been identified. Or at least we've been able to determine that some of the feet actually belong to the same person.
Through DNA testing, authorities learned that the men's right foot in a size 11 Nike that was found on February 8, 2008 on Valdez Island, as well as the men's left foot found on West Helm Island on June 16 of that same year, those two feet actually belonged to the same man, although his identity still remains a mystery.
Next, the woman's right foot in the blue and white New Balance sneaker that was found on May 22nd, 2008 on Kirkland Island was later found to have belonged to a woman who committed suicide off a bridge in New Westminster back in April of 2004.
So although she committed suicide in 2004, her foot didn't appear on the beach until four years later in 2008. A similar situation happened again when authorities linked a woman's left foot found on November 11th, 2008 to the right foot discovered on May 22nd, also on Kirkland Island.
This time, authorities could use a forensic DNA profile analysis to determine the two feet were a genetic match to one another and were from the same person. Over the years, the British Columbia Coroner Service has compared each foot to a database containing over 500 missing persons.
They also compared the feet to DNA profiles uploaded to Canada's National Missing Persons DNA Program that the country recently launched in 2018. Since comparing the feet to the databases, the authorities have linked nine feet to seven missing people. The longest missing person disappeared back in 1985 and the most recent disappeared in 2016.
What's even more interesting is that only one identified foot has been linked to a homicide. Some involved suicide, others were simply accidents, and some of the cases still remain a mystery. But besides figuring out the identities, authorities needed to figure out what was causing so many feet to wash ashore.
And the answer to that question relies on forensic pathology. Now, we know that how our bodies experience decomposition differs in water than it does on land. So the answer to why feet float to the surface of the water lies in how our bodies decompose. In 2007, a study was conducted at Simon Fraser University.
The study's goal was to learn how quickly a homicide victim would decompose in the water. In other words, if someone is murdered and their body is dumped in the ocean, how long would it take for that body to completely decompose?
Of course, to conduct this type of study, forensic scientists couldn't use real human remains because that would violate standard ethical practices. So instead, they used pigs, dead pigs. Forensic scientists decided on using dead pigs for this study. Historically, pigs have been used in many studies involving humans.
Pigs can be roughly the same size as some humans, and surprisingly, they are biologically similar to humans, making them a perfect substitute for real human beings in these types of studies. So in this 2007 study, scientists conducted their research in the Salish Sea, not too far from where many of the feet were discovered.
Scientists dropped pigs into the ocean during the study, where they sank a little over 300 feet to the bottom. Then, using an underwater camera, the team was able to observe and document exactly how the pigs were decomposing.
Now, this part of the story is not pretty. But basically, the pigs were eaten by sea animals like shrimp, lobsters, whatever else was coming their way. And this process happened rather quickly. In some cases, a pig was almost skeletonized within four days of being dropped in the ocean. But how do we get down to the feet?
Well, as it turns out, many sea animals will work around the bones. They don't like bones. They're too hard and they don't digest well. So they will eat other parts of the body that are softer, including the muscles and tissues. And here's where we get to our feet.
So our ankles, the part of our bodies that connect our feet to our legs, is a relatively weak part of our bodies. Our human ankles are mostly made up of softer tissues like ligaments. So sea animals are more likely to target our ankles because they're weak and they contain that softer tissue that they enjoy eating.
And once the animal gets through the ankle, ligaments, and tissues, that's what causes our feet to detach from our legs. But this doesn't just happen with sea animals. Our ankles can become detached from our legs in the ocean without the help of sea animals. So again, going back to the same principle that our ankles are relatively weak, we
Simply being in the ocean can cause feet to become detached from the body. Same thing can happen with our hands as well as other parts of our bodies.
Now, if a human body is submerged in water, most of our extremities will also detach from the center of our bodies. Our hands, our head. That's why it's prevalent in cases involving bodies discovered on beaches to only find parts of the victim. Whether that's their hands, legs, feet, head, torso, you name it.
The longer the body spends submerged in water, the more detached the body will become from our center masses, which is generally our torsos. Now, the case that comes to mind when I talk about this is the murder of Lacey Peterson.
I think we all remember the story about Lacey Peterson from Northern California who went missing around Christmastime and part of her body washed ashore in the San Francisco Bay.
But when her body was discovered by a couple of people just walking down the beach that day, they only found part of her. It was mostly just her torso, her center mass. She was even missing both of her legs. And to this day, this part of the story always sticks out to me that to this day, her head has never been located.
Now, she was also eight to nine months pregnant at the time she was murdered, and her unborn son, Connor, was also found. But by this point, the unborn fetus, Connor, had been separated from Lacey's stomach, and his body also floated to the surface and washed up on shore where he was ultimately discovered.
Typically, it's rare for our extremities to float on water. Most remain submerged underwater. In cases like Lacey Peterson and many others over the years, investigators were lucky that any part of the victims' bodies floated to the surface. And even more fortunate that the body parts made their way to the shore.
In most cases, typically speaking, our body parts just don't float. So what makes this case involving the feet cause them to float and then ultimately make it to shore? The short and simple answer is the shoes. This episode of Forensic Tales is brought to you by Best Fiends.
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According to research, most shoes made within the last decade would almost always float in the water. The foam used to create the sole of most common shoes causes them to become buoyant in the water, float, and possibly make its way towards land. The shoes might also float if there's air trapped inside of the shoe. This trapped air would cause the shoe to float and again possibly make its way towards the beach or any other part of land.
However, generally speaking, finding feet and not the rest of the body is highly unusual. This doesn't happen every day. If we're going to find part of a body in the ocean, we're likely to find more than one part. Maybe both feet will wash ashore. Maybe a torso or a head.
Typically, we'll see different parts float to the surface for one reason or another. And that's what makes this particular case more unusual. Because finding feet and not the rest of the body is, well, just strange. And what's even stranger than finding just feet is finding two feet. Two feet that belong to the same person.
The odds of that happening is practically one in a hundred million. You're probably more likely to win the lottery than you are to find two floating feet in the ocean that belong to the same person.
Once the authorities figured out why feet would become detached from the rest of the body and why shoes would float to the surface, the next question was, why were the feet showing up in the same geographic region? Why weren't beaches everywhere across the world filled with detached human feet?
The answer to that question didn't come from forensic pathology. It came from oceanography. According to Parker McCready, a professor in oceanography at the University of Washington, the answer to this question comes from the weather and from the ocean. It turns out the Salish Sea in British Columbia acts as the perfect spot to gather detached human feet.
Parker McCready describes the sea as, quote, an unusually large and complex body of inland water, which basically acts as a trap. So once an object gets inside this sea, it's stuck. It might get washed ashore in different places along the sea, but it's not going to wash up very far. So once these feet ended up in the sea, they were trapped.
Now, the second thing MacReady pointed to is the wind. Historically, the wind in this part of Canada blows in one direction. This means that once something is blown into this portion of the ocean, it's stuck there and it isn't going to be pushed out to sea.
The only direction it has to go is towards the beaches in the area, which would explain why the feet popped up on land so close to one another.
Essentially, what MacReady was saying is that this body of water just has the perfect recipe. If someone commits suicide by jumping off a bridge, or maybe falls into the water by accident, or if someone is thrown into the water against their will, dead or alive, the water and weather conditions will cause body parts, especially feet, to wash up on shore.
As the authorities in British Columbia uncovered the truth behind the floating feet, many followers were, well, left disappointed. Many people were disappointed that there wasn't some serial killer with a foot fetish on the loose or that there wasn't a bigger, crazier explanation behind it all.
people were disappointed that the explanation was relatively simple and straightforward. It came down to forensic pathology and the way our body decompose in the water and simple oceanography. But even though the answer turned out to be simple and straightforward, the case of the British Columbia floating feet still managed to attract international attention and has been the star of pop culture.
In 2011, the story was featured in a Norwegian novel titled Dregs. Hope I'm pronouncing that right. So this book, which was later translated into English, offered up a fictional explanation as to why the feet washed ashore. It was a story about the head of Norway's intelligence agency and his investigation into the floating feet.
They didn't know if there had been some sort of terrible accident at sea. They didn't know if there was a serial killer on the loose. Much of the storyline in this Norwegian novel actually follows what many people initially thought of in real life when this first started happening. But because it's a fictional novel, the ending is much more dramatic than the real life story.
Now, also in 2011, the American crime procedural drama Bones did an episode loosely based on the story. The episode, which is called The Feet on the Beach, starts with eight pairs of detached human feet being discovered along the U.S. and Canadian border.
But just like with a Norwegian novel, the episode of Bones turned out to be much more dramatic than what really happened. The story was also written in a book that came out in 2020 titled Crooked River. Written by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, Crooked River begins with a discovery of severed human feet found on a beach.
Although the story ultimately takes the reader in a different direction, the opening part of the novel very closely reflects what happened in real life in British Columbia. Although authorities in British Columbia believe that they have figured out what caused so many feet to wash ashore on their beaches, many people still speculate about the true cause. It's a story that is just weird.
To this day, there remains so much uncertainty. Will there be additional feet that wash ashore? Will other parts of the world experience the same strange phenomenon? Is there something more to this story? Whatever you think about the British Columbia floating feet case, it will go down in history as one of the few cases in which the truth baffled forensic science.
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Please join me next week. We'll have a brand new case and a brand new story to talk about. Until then, remember, not all stories have happy endings.
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