9th Foot Washes Up in BC

Another foot missing its owner has washed ashore in southwestern British Columbia—the ninth such grim discovery in the last four years. Unlike the others, this one, found by a group of teens, was in freshwater and was in a hiking boot, not a running shoe, CBC reports. Investigators believe the foot separated naturally from the rest of the body and had probably been submerged for at least a decade. Six of the feet found previously have been identified.

The foot finds may be unsettling, but they're simply the result of changes in footwear, the local coroner insists. "As shoes become more buoyant, that's the only source of remains that we're likely to find in many water-related cases," he tells the Coquitlam Now, though he doesn't explain why the bodies are there to begin with. "Then it's a case of the body just breaking down. Whatever is buoyant or encased in something buoyant—like these running shoes or hikers—will come back to the surface." (More British Columbia stories.)