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| -Lurid Crime Tales- |
| 7th Shoe washed ashore in B.C. tested for human remains |
| 2008-11-13 |
| VANCOUVER - A former B.C. provincial politician and his wife have recovered what is believed to be the seventh detached foot to have washed ashore on the West Coast since last year. Ken Johnston says his wife Diane was walking their dogs along a Fraser River beach in Richmond, B.C., on Tuesday when she spotted the sneaker. "She could see it was a running shoe and it was sitting on a rock about 10 feet from the beach, but the tide was in and she had the dogs with her and was unable to reach it," he said. Johnston said the pair returned to the spot later in the day. "She said, 'Let's go and see if the shoe is still there.' Now it was between two logs, so she went down the bank and threw it up to me. "I flipped it over and could see a sock and other material inside I couldn't identify," said Ken Johnston, a member of the B.C. legislature from 2001 to 2005. The couple decided to phone the police, who collected the shoe. Richmond RCMP said the left New Balance running shoe, thought to be a woman's, has been turned over to the Coroners Service of British Columbia, so that any tissue inside can be processed for DNA tests. "It's too early to draw any parallels (to other shoes) until we conduct an examination and extract a DNA sample from the remains," said Const. Annie Linteau. She declined to provide any details about the size, colour or model of the latest shoe. Another New Balance sneaker, a white shoe fitted for a right foot, washed up in B.C. in May. Of all the shoes that have washed ashore in B.C., that was the only other woman's shoe. In the previous cases, there was no indication of foul play. The feet appear to have come detached "through natural processes," according to police. Five of the six previous feet were found in B.C., and the other was found Aug. 4 on a beach south of the U.S.-Canada border, near Port Angeles, Wash. There were also several hoaxes. On June 18, what was thought to be a foot washed up near Campbell River on Vancouver Island. It was later discovered that someone placed the bones of an animal's foot in a sock and packed it inside a sneaker with seaweed. Then in September, someone placed a plastic foot in a runner on an East Vancouver beach. "Obviously, due to the fact that a hoax was perpetrated previously . . . we want to proceed cautiously until we know what exactly we are dealing with," Linteau said. Diane said she hopes the find will help determine the identity of the victim so their family might find some solace. "I feel a great deal of empathy for a family in that situation," said Diane. In the summer of 1989, the couple's six-year-old son, Adam, drowned at a nearby beach. The boy had vanished during the outing and it took the police more than a day to recover his body. She doesn't need to describe the agony she and rest of the family endured while waiting for him to be found. "My son would be 26 now so, yes, it did occur to both of us how important it is to find something - even just a small part of someone's loved one," she said. Police are continuing to probe missing-persons files to identify the remains in all the cases where human remains were confirmed through tests. The first two shoes, both containing right feet, were discovered within a week in late August 2007 on islands in the Strait of Georgia. The third case, also involving a right foot that washed up on an island in the Strait of Georgia, was in February. The other two shoes - containing left feet - were found on islands in the Fraser River last May 22 and June 16. |
| Posted by:anonymous5089 |
| #5 Foot fetish? |
| Posted by: JohnQC 2008-11-13 22:24 |
| #4 Has there been any human trafficking there lately. Maybe all of these feet belong to illegals that were thrown off a boat and have finally come to rest. Or, maybe there is a cannibal loose that doesn't like feet and prefers only to eat the other parts. Ha Ha. |
| Posted by: Farenheit 451 2008-11-13 09:46 |
| #3 lol |
| Posted by: chris 2008-11-13 09:05 |
| #2 Looks like Vancouver B.C. has increased by seven feet. |
| Posted by: tipper 2008-11-13 08:45 |
| #1 Vancouver BC, the serial killer capital of the world. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2008-11-13 05:20 |