Investigators have quickly linked last month’s discovery of a severed foot – the seventh since 2007 – to a missing person file.
RCMP and the B.C. Coroner’s Service announced yesterday a foot that washed up in Richmond Oct. 27 has been traced to a 25-year-old man who was reported missing in January 2008.
The discovery reignited international media attention to the mystery surrounding the case of the severed feet.
“I’ve fielded calls from as far as Tel Aviv,” said RCMP spokesperson Cpl. Annie Linteau. “I’m not surprised, it’s a very unusual case.”
Since Aug. 20, 2007, seven running shoes with severed human feet have been found washed up along B.C.’s south coast and only two have been identified.
The circumstances around them remain a mystery.
“There are no tool marks or signs that the feet were cut off,” said Jeff Dolan, the director of provincial operation for the B.C. Coroner’s Service.
It’s believed the feet naturally
disarticulated in water and the buoyancy of the shoes helped speed the process up.
But officials still don’t know where the bodies belonging to the feet may be, or by what means they got there.
“The important thing at this point is not to rule anything out,” Dolan said.
