Severed Foot Washes Up On Pacific NW Coast

(NewsCore) - Police in Washington State were investigating Saturday the eighth human foot in two-and-a-half years to have washed ashore along the stretch of waterway between Vancouver and Seattle, KOMO-TV reported.

The severed foot -- stripped of all skin with only muscle and tendon remaining -- was found Friday morning by a person walking along a beach on Whidbey Island, 30 miles (48 km) north of Seattle, police told the local news channel.

Investigators claim that the foot was likely in the water for less than two months, and judging by its size, it probably belonged to a woman or a child.

Since Island County does not have an open missing person case, deputies are expanding the investigation to include outside agencies, and a DNA profile is pending, KOMO-TV reported.

The foot was the eighth found in the coastal waterway since early 2008, but unlike the others -- which were all found in tennis shoes -- this one was bare.

The other seven feet have washed up in locations ranging from Port Angeles, Wash., to Kirkland Island at the mouth of the Fraser River, which runs through Vancouver.

Police apparently were only able to make a connection between two of the feet, which were both encased in women’s New Balance running shoes and found six months apart. Investigators eventually discovered the identity of the woman but have had little luck with the other cases.

Besides the one left foot in the matching pair, all others found were right feet.

A Seattle oceanographer, Curtis Ebbesmeyer, told KOMO-TV that arms, legs, hands, feet and the head often separate from the body when it is submerged in the ocean for a long period of time.

His theory is that the feet washed down and spread out along the Strait of Georgia from an accident that might have happened along the Fraser River.